Harry Potter and the World Beneath
by Tellemicus Sundance
Summary: Running away from the Dursleys at a young age was a turning point of his destiny. Now he lives alone in the wilderness of a land long forgotten by the passage of time. And this is the story of his discovery in the lost world beneath. Slow updates, sorry.
1. Harry's Decision

**(Author's Note)** First and foremost, I'd like to extend an unbelievably high amount of gratitude to **kb0** for allowing me to borrow the beginning scenes of his story to start mine own here. Without his permission, this story would've likely had a very different and probably not as solid of a beginning. If any of you are interested, I recommend you read his original story of Harry Potter: Kidnapped, it's actually a very enjoyable read!

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 1—Harry's Decision_

Harry Potter stared at the paper in his hand. The "100" on the top of the test was bad enough, but the smiley face beside it mocked him. He was tempted to throw it away, but the problem was that his cousin, Dudley Dursley, was in his second grade class, and so he knew Harry had taken the test too. Dudley also knew that Harry had a perfect score because the teacher had boasted that Harry was the only one to make a perfect score on the test. Harry also knew that Dudley would discuss the test, and Harry's results, over dinner. More accurately, Harry knew Dudley would talk about it just before dinner, and so he would be sent to his cupboard without dinner once again, while "perfect little Dudley" would get his normal dinner and Harry's too. Life was so unfair.

He sighed as he considered what would happen to him because of a moment lapse in judgment and memory to do only a _little_ better than Dudley. Harry looked around at the other children in his class, and he was almost sure none of them had to worry about bringing home a perfect score. Harry put the paper away and picked up his reading book to imitate reading it like everyone else while he let his thoughts wonder. It would be alright, especially since he had already read the section a couple of days ago.

What was he going to do? He remembered the missed meals, extra chores and belt lashing on his back, along with being thrown into his cupboard when he had scored too much better than his cousin last year in first grade. In fact, his cupboard _still_ had an unpleasant odor to it because he had not been let out for an entire weekend the last time this happened. That incident had opened his eyes to a completely new set of injustices against him. He really wanted just to throw the paper away and claim that Dudley was lying about the perfect score, but his aunt and uncle _always_ believed their son over him. He was just going to have to take his extra lumps and be more careful with his schoolwork, he thought bitterly.

Looking up, he saw his teacher grading papers. He wished he could tell her what was going on and see if she could help him, but he did not dare. Harry had tried that once with the school nurse, who had asked his aunt a few questions, and he had actually been smacked around quite a bit more cruelly by his uncle when they had returned to the house. His injuries had not been too bad, but the ones on his back had stung something very fierce and it had hurt to breathe deeply for the next few days because he had fallen onto the edge of the living room table.

He wished he did not have to deal with his relatives ever again, they were _not_ his family. He wished he was on his own. He idly turned a page to make it look like he was reading as he thought. What would it be like to be on his own?

A devious smile crossed his face as he thought about doing what he wanted and not getting into trouble for it. That was enjoyable for a few minutes, until reality asserted itself. To be on his own also meant he would no longer be in his aunt's house. Where would he live? He considered that. He could live outside almost anywhere for another month or so. Eventually, it would get too cold and he'd have to find a house or shelter somewhere. That might not be too bad. He could live on his own during warm weather, and in a shelter in cold weather.

Would they try to send him back to his aunt when he went to a shelter? Well, that was easily avoided. Just don't tell them his real name, and he would have to get away from Surrey so no one would recognize him.

Food could be an issue, he considered. Well, he did not eat much now, so maybe he could find some money here and there or beg for it. Surely that could not be any worse than with his relatives, could it? He turned another page, not really reading this one either.

Shelter and food seemed to be the more important things, at least that he knew about. He considered it more. Maybe he could do it. Looking to his right and a little back, he saw his cousin whisper to his best friend Piers, who quietly chuckled and then looked at Harry with an evil smile. That did it; he would take his chances out in the world. If the worst happened, he could go to one of those orphanages his uncle threatened him with. He suspected his uncle was lying and they were not as bad as he said. His uncle lied about enough other things; Harry was never totally sure what was true and what was not.

Harry thought very carefully about what he needed to do. Dudley was further away from the door, that would help, as would the fact that Dudley was a slow runner. Harry really only needed two things from his aunt's house -- no three, no four. Harry wondered if he was forgetting anything else as his mental list grew.

He looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that the final bell for the day would ring in about two minutes. He could not go to school again, but he really did not want to stop learning. He could take his books with him, but that would be stealing. They would also slow him down with running. Another glance up showed he had about one minute.

Quickly, Harry pulled all of his books out of his little book bag and put them under his desk. The girl next to him frowned and stared, obviously wondering what he was doing. Ignoring her, he put all of "his" things into his book bag, paper and pencils being the most important. He closed his now much lighter bag and waited. His legs tensed as he readied for the first ring of the bell.

Half a minute later, the final bell started ringing and Harry shot out of his desk for the door surprising everyone, especially the teacher; but he was out before she could stop him. Not worrying about the school rule of not running in the hall, since he was not planning to return, he ran for the outside door. Hitting the bar to open the door barely slowed him down. With his light backpack bouncing on his back, Harry ran for his aunt's house, taking every short-cut he knew of.

He would easily beat his cousin back. The only real problem would be if his aunt, or especially his uncle, was there. Perhaps he could run past them, there were two doors in and out of the house.

Out of breathe, but not willing to stop, Harry ran up to the front door of #4 Privet Drive. It was immeasurable relief to him when he noticed that his uncle's car was not in the driveway. The front door was locked also locked, and while that slowed him down, it also gave him hope that his aunt was probably not home. He ran around to the back and opened the door. Not seeing his aunt in the kitchen, he ran to the pantry. As quickly as he could, he grabbed several bags of crisps and other packaged food that he could eat without having to cook and put them into his backpack. Next, he went to the fridge and grabbed as much fruit as he could and put it in the backpack too. That would give him some food for the next few days, if he was careful.

The next things on his mental list were his, so he ran to his cupboard. Opening it up, he pulled out his blanket and what few clothes he had, as well as a light jacket that was one size too small, tossing them onto the blanket before he balled it all up and shoved the bundle of cloth into his school bag, carefully moving it around so as to not crush his food. Reaching into a cubby hole only he knew about, he pulled out a small paper bag. Hastily, he put the little clinking bag into his book bag. It was change that he had found in the couch when he was cleaning.

Leaving everything sitting where it was, he quickly ran up the stairs to his aunt and uncle's bedroom, thankful that the house was empty. Going to the dresser, he pulled out the bottom drawer and smiled as he saw his uncles stash of "mad money". The man had talked about having it in case something ever went wrong, and Harry decided things were going wrong, so he grabbed the three bundles of bills and stuffed them into the pockets of his baggy jeans.

He felt a little bad about doing this, as it could be considered stealing, but he justified it to himself that it was his pay for all the chores, beatings, and bullying he had endured since he was old enough to remember. He had heard a girl in class last year say that their family had a woman come into their home to cook, clean, do laundry, and she was a paid for that. Harry had done all of those things and more.

With money for necessities and emergencies, he put the drawer back and ran downstairs. For the first time, he clomped on the stairs just like his cousin always did.

Shutting the door to the cupboard under the stairs, Harry slung his backpack on before and headed for the front door. As he started to open it, he heard shouting from the other side and someone frantically trying to open the door. Harry froze.

"Mum's not here, around to the back," Dudley shouted, although he sounded very out of breath. Harry waited a few seconds and then opened the door. Not seeing anyone, he stepped out and closed the door behind him. Still not seeing anyone, although he could hear the shouts from the back garden, Harry ran down the street, turning after the first block. For the next half dozen blocks, Harry did not stop running. He turned down another street before he slowed to a walk, drawing in great gulps of air after his exertion.

Harry was almost happy he was 'lost'. He did not think this was the route his uncle took to work and he knew of no reason that his aunt would be here, although who knew what his aunt really did when both he and his cousin were off at school. During the summer, she always stuck round the house cleaning the parts she did not make him clean, reading magazines, and watching the telly.

Even though he was only a little more than six, he knew from listening to his uncle, that London was to the east. Thanks to a school book, he knew that the sun rose in the east and set in the west. So, Harry put the late afternoon sun at his back and started walking, his backpack sagging over his shoulders. He got quite a number of strange looks from a few people, too many in his opinion, but most ignored him.

Harry continued to walk as the sky darkened. The neighborhood he had grown up in was now at least several miles behind him and he entered a wooded area. To his mind, it seemed like a good place to hide. Being found now would not be a good thing. When his uncle reported him missing, and Harry was sure he would as Harry's aunt would make him, he would be returned to them. After all, how many children ran away each day?

Walking in the woods not too far from the road, Harry continued to follow the direction of the road he had been walking on. Just before dark, Harry noticed that the woods were coming to an end and there was another neighborhood in front of him. He stopped and looked around carefully. He decided it was probably best to stop here for the night.

Spreading his blanket out, Harry sat down, more tired than he would have imagined. Digging into his grocery bag, Harry pulled out a bag of crisps and opened it for dinner. As he finished the bag, he found the first flaw in his plan: no water. Digging in the bag again, Harry pulled out an apple and ate it. That was almost juicy enough to help, but he really wanted more water. It was not much of a dinner, but it was more than he got some nights. He looked towards the house a couple of hundred yards away and wondered. If it was like his relatives house, there would be a garden hose on the outside. Harry figured they probably would not mind, but it was also probably better that they did not know he wanted some of their water. He wished he had a bottle of some sort.

Putting on his light jacket and laying his head down, Harry looked up as the sky darkened. The stars were coming out and there was a half moon. The temperature was only cool this early in September, but he wrapped himself up in his blanket anyway. The ground was a bit hard, but only a little more so than his old crib mattress under the stairs. Before he knew it, Harry was asleep, feeling the best he had felt in a long time.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

A faint light woke Harry up. Looking around, he realized the new day was about to begin. Fortunately, most people were not up and about yet. As quickly as he could, he got up and ran for the nearby house. Luckily, they did have a tap and hose in the front behind some bushes, so Harry turned the water on so it just barely dribbled out and made no noise. He greedily drank for the next few minutes before he turned the water off. Once more he wished really hard that he had a bottle, like one of those plastic bottles his aunt brought fizzy drinks home for his cousin.

In that moment of intense desire, Harry felt a strange tingle run through his body towards his hands. While he tried to figure out what it was, a clear plastic bottle with a faded label hit him in the head as if it had been thrown to him, causing him to almost yell. With great fear, Harry slowly looked around, but did not see or hear anyone.

He could not explain what had happened, but he decided to take the bottle and use it. While he wished he could wash the bottle first, he figured rinsing it would be the best he could do, so he did that and then filled it up. With water he could now take with him, he quietly ran back to the woods and his stuff.

With one exception, Harry was ready to continue his journey. Drinking the water had made him need to go to the bathroom, but there was no bathroom available. That was another problem he would have to solve. Fortunately, at the moment, a bush would be good enough, so he stood behind one and relieved himself.

Feeling much better, now Harry picked up his stuff and started walking again. He got a few more strange looks as the morning went on, but again, Harry ignored them as he walked towards the sun. By the time the sun was overhead, Harry had come to a major road and saw a sign that pointed to London. He smiled as he thought it would be the perfect place to get lost in. There, he could just be one of thousands, maybe even millions.

Scouting out the area, he saw a little store that sold petrol for cars and looked like it also had food inside. Doing his best to look normal, while sweating in fear of getting caught, Harry walked inside. The clerk looked at him, but did not say anything. In the back, Harry found a row of sandwiches. Noting their price, he pulled some of the money out of his pocket. The entire bundle was made up of bills that had a twenty on them, so Harry only pulled out a single bill and pushed the rest of the bundle back down. Grabbing a sandwich and a liter bottle of water, Harry walked up and paid for his items. The clerk looked at him even more strangely, but sold the items to him and gave him change back. Harry took his sandwich outside and found a small park nearby. Walking over, he ate his lunch and pondered a question.

Why was he receiving so many strange looks? Glancing around, he saw mothers with their little children, and some of them were looking at him strangely too. Did they fear him? He drank his water as he watch two of the mothers talking, one of them looking over at him for a moment. He did not understand, because he never had this problem when he went to the park after school.

Then it hit him. He should be in school because of his age. While he was small for his age, evidenced by the fact that he was the shortest one in his first grade class, he was big enough to look like he should be in school. Harry wondered what he could do. If he traveled only from when school was out until sunset, he would not get very far very fast. Harry pulled out a banana and thought some more.

The only thing he could think of was to be very careful in traveling, and try to not be noticed unless it was after school hours. Or the weekend, he thought with a smile. He could walk as much as he wanted on the weekend. Satisfied with that plan, Harry walked down the street until he found an alleyway going the direction he wanted and ducked into the alleyway. He would not draw so much attention here, he reasoned.

As evening came around, Harry found a secluded place in another park and settled in. This was a rather nice place. He found a thicket of bushes to hide in and there was a water fountain. The park even had a public restroom. As much as he hated to do it, he ended up taking a wad of toilet paper, figuring he would need it later. Also, late at night, he stripped down and sort of had a bath, using a sock and the sink. Changing into his one other set of clothes, Harry washed out the set he had been wearing. This showed him some more things he had not thought about. Although he was not scared, he was starting to wonder if his adventure was such a good idea. But he was _not_ ready to give up and go find an orphanage yet. Though he was definitely starting to see some good reasons to find one instead of repeating what he'd already thus far done.

The next morning was Friday, and Harry decided to stay where he was, until he noticed a lot of people in cars going to an area a few blocks away. He could see just far enough down the street that it was obvious where they were going, and his curiosity got the better of him. Grabbing his stuff, he started walking to see what everyone was doing.

Fifteen minutes later, Harry was standing in a large car park in front of a building that had lots of people going in. Mingling into the crowd, he soon found himself in a train terminal. It did not take him long to see signs for London with a lot of numbers next to them. He stood to the side to think about this. Harry did not want to get lost or stranded somewhere that might be bad.

If he took a train in, it would save him a lot of walking time, but it might also mean he got caught on the train with no place to run and hide. Even he could see that jumping off of a moving train would not be a good idea. The ones that did not stop were whizzing by.

"Bah, I missed my normal train. I won't get to London on time now."

The words from the man in front of him caught his attention. He watched the man look at the board trying to determine what he was going to do.

"Maybe I can make the 7:47," the man muttered loudly to himself as he started to walk off at fairly smart pace.

In a fit of bravery, or else extreme foolishness, Harry followed after the man, doing his best to stay near without bumping into him. A few minutes later, the man came to a barrier and swiped his card on top of the barrier and pushed his way through some metal arms that turned.

Harry was almost in a panic, he was going to lose his guide. Noticing that he could fit under the metal arms, Harry ran forward and squatted down under an empty one. No one shouted at him, so Harry hurried on, barely keeping the man in sight. In fact, when he came to a clear space, Harry decided to run. Soon, he was right behind the man again and standing on a platform with a lot of other people, most of them men. As he came to a standstill, he noticed his heart was beating very quickly; he was not sure if it was from running or that he was a little scared.

A few minutes later, a white train pulled into the station and the man walked onto it. Harry followed, grabbing onto a pole just like the man did. When the train started moving, Harry grew even more apprehensive. It would be so easy to get caught here, but he screwed up his courage and held onto the pole with one arm and his grocery bag with the other arm. His book bag was still on his back.

A number of stops went by. Harry thought they were part of London, but he really had no idea. All he could do was watch the man every time the train stopped. Eventually, the train came to another stop and many people left, including the man, so Harry left too.

It wasn't until he had left the train itself that he saw that the station he was currently at was called King's Cross. Despite himself, Harry couldn't help but smile slightly at the silly name for a train station. However, in his moment of distraction, the man who he'd been following had vanished into the streaming crowds. Suddenly feeling awkward and cramped, Harry quickly worked his way over to the side. Once he was out of the crowds, a strange tension seemed to wash out of him and he felt an unexplainable need to take a brief rest against the column he was standing beside.

Taking off his backpack and letting it sag in his grasp, Harry turned to brace his back against the column. However, when he should've touched brick and stone, he felt only air. Caught in an awkward position, Harry had no other alternative than to topple and fall onto his back, banging his head quite painfully into the concrete ground under him.

"Owie," he whined as he pushed himself up off the floor. As he tenderly rubbed the back of his head, he noticed something…wrong. Why did it look like his feet were sticking into the column in front of him?

Wait…that wasn't right. Wasn't the column behind him just a second ago?! Reflexively acting, Harry yanked his feet back to his chest with wide eyes, fully expecting them to be stuck in the bricks and in serious agony. Yet he was able to pull them out and to him without feeling a thing, it was as though the column wasn't even there!

It took considerable amount of willpower to keep himself from panicking and screaming out for the whole station to hear him. It wasn't until this thought passed through his mind that he glanced over towards where the other Londoners were…only to find a completely deserted train station. What happened? Where was everyone?! And what did that sign mean by calling this place 'Platform 9 ¾'?

Climbing carefully to his feet, Harry looked around cautiously with wide and frightful eyes. Lifting his backpack back onto his scrawny shoulders, he slowly and hesitantly made his way through the deserted platform. Where was everyone? He kept asking himself that question over and over again, even as he spent the next ten minutes carefully looking around the entire platform.

It wasn't until he realized that he was completely alone and isolated on this strange platform that Harry decided it was time to…find a way back. But that was where he ran into a serious problem. The place where he'd fallen through seemed like the most logical place to start with getting out, but when he tried, all he encountered was the normal immovable brick wall. And there didn't seem to be any other way off the platform except…

Turning around, Harry stared distrustfully at the rail tracks. Despite the platform being as silent as a mouse, excluding the din of city surrounding it, Harry was still hesitant to follow the tracks out. To do that meant that he'd have to get off the platform and walk on the tracks themselves until he finally reached the city area again, and there was no way of knowing whether or not another train was coming down the tracks while he was on them.

Walking to the edge of the tracks, he leaned forward as far as he could to look down the tracks for as far as he could see. He couldn't see or hear any approaching trains, so that was at least slightly reassuring. But by a fluke of fate, Harry had accidentally leant too far out and lost his balance, falling and landing heavily onto the tracks. The fall sent jolts of pain through his arms and legs and he scrapped enough tender skin off his palms to cause them to bleed slightly. Quick as he could, Harry climbed back to his feet and tried to climb back up onto the platform. But his small stature prevented him from even reaching it.

With no other choice, Harry turned and started walking down the railroad tracks, praying to any god that might've been listening to protect a worthless, little freak like himself from being crushed and killed.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

At first he had planned on climbing off the tracks as soon as he managed to find a way back to London, but as he continued to walk down the tracks, a great many questions began popping up in his head. How did he fall through a brick support column in the middle of a train station? Why did he end up where he did? Why was the platform he was on deserted? Why was it named Platform 9 ¾, such a silly name too. And why was it that none of the people on the streets that he was slowly passing seemed to notice that there was six-year-old boy in broad daylight walking on train tracks?

Despite himself and how much Uncle Vernon loathed it, Harry couldn't help but ask himself, was it magic? It was the only answer that his young mind could come up with that could answer so many questions, despite creating an entire ocean's worth to follow-up on it. And following that train of thought, it seemed only logical to Harry that the people who could answer his questions were at the end of this train track.

Thus, with really nothing better to do until nightfall, Harry continued his slow trek across the tracks. He only stopped to let his feet and legs rest when walking became unbearable, to refill his water bottles, and to relieve himself in the closest public buildings he could find.

As dusk crept steadily closer, Harry finally climbed off the tracks and went about looking for a place to sleep. It wasn't anything like the brush and grasses that he'd slept in the previous night. Swallowing his own self-disgust, Harry settled down to sleep in the shadow of a smelly dumpster. But he could bear the smell. After all, his cupboard had a much nastier scent from that one time. Harry was even lucky that there was convenience store nearby where he'd been able to buy more fruit and sandwiches to compliment his bottled water, a practical feast to the malnourished orphan.

That was more or less the routine that Harry's life had fallen into as he slowly traversed the countryside, always following the railroad. And the farther he went north, the farther in between cities and towns became. This forced him to learn how to conserve his food and, most importantly, water supply. And he found that after the first week, the more he walked along the railroad, the easier it became to bear the long days walking as his leg muscles slowly began to grow stronger.

However, that wasn't to say that the weather cooperated with the boy. A cold storm had come drifting through the area, drenching everything and everyone mercilessly for a period of two days straight. If not for the money that he'd stolen before he ran away, Harry wouldn't have survived those cold days.

He had been approaching a town when the storm struck on the first day. Even though the smart thing to do would've been to wait it out, Harry had nowhere to go to do such a thing. So he had gone to the nearest store to buy a new, larger, and waterproof backpack, new pairs of shoes and pants, a tent, a raincoat, and a hunting knife. The store clerk had given him some pretty suspicious looks when he saw what the small boy's purchases were, but he'd allowed the boy to make them. Of course, as Harry was leaving the store, he'd managed to glimpse the clerk making a call on the phone.

This sent warning bells through Harry's mind as his fight or flight instincts took over. The authorities would be on his trail soon and take him back to the Dursleys! He ran as fast as he could back to where he knew the train tracks were. He'd discovered soon after starting his trek that for some reason as long as he was standing on the tracks, no one seemed to notice him. And sure enough, despite standing in the wide open, the passing police didn't even see him as they drove by.

That had been over three weeks ago. He was pretty sure that September was almost over now, but he had slowly lost track of the days since he began spending less time in civilization. The weather was turning slowly cooler and damper with each passing day. He needed to find the people who were responsible for this magical train track and the platform back at King's Cross quickly, so he wouldn't be forced to spend the coming winter trapped back at the Dursleys' cramped little home on Number 4 Privet Drive. After spending so much time out in the wilderness, Harry could honestly state that he would never live in the wooden prison-like structures that most modern day people called houses.

In the three weeks time he trek had been, Harry had crossed over a significant portion of Great Britain and seen a lot more of his home country than he ever had before. At first he had felt kinda lonely as he walked down the tracks surrounded by nothing by hills, grasses, and trees. But now he found a certain amount of solace to the natural and comforting beauty of the landscapes and wildlife.

He wasn't sure just where he was in Great Britain anymore. But one thing he knew for certain was that the sun was once again steadily sinking behind the horizon, a bright full moon was already clearly visible, and that there was fairly large forest not too far off in the distance. However, there was something about the forest that felt almost…primeval.

Against his better judgment, Harry abandoned the tracks to walk a short distance into the forest where he would set up his small camp for the night. It was a decision that would forever change his life and the fate of an ancient magical world that he wasn't aware existed.

* * *

**(Author's Note)** Please understand that this story is not one of very high priority on my update list. I'm very deeply committed to writing my Gundam SEED Destiny story and I still have yet to add a new chapter for my Yu Yu Hakusho fanfic as well. However, this story, like several others of mine, was inspired by an idea that just refused to leave me alone until I actually posted it. That being the case, you can probably expect another two or three chapters in the fairly near-future until I've gotten the basic setting for this story laid and established.


	2. Giant Spider Attack!

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 2—Giant Spider Attack!_

**6 September 1986  
Saturday**

In northern Scotland, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft walked into his office after dinner. A very fine dinner he thought. He was about to sit down at this desk to handle the small mountain of paperwork when one of the little silver trinkets on his shelf made a light whistling noise and started puffing black smoke.

Slightly concerned, he went over to see which one it was, as he had several monitors. He became even more concerned when he saw it was not any of the ones that monitored the castle, but the one that monitored Harry Potter. Specifically, it was the one that monitored the wards around his aunt's house.

"Tilly!" he called out.

A pop sounded and an odd little character was standing in front of him. "Yes, Headmaster?"

"Tilly, please find Professor McGonagall and tell her I need to see her as soon as possible. Then go find Professor Flitwick and tell him that he's in charge of the school for a few hours while Professor McGonagall and I handle an emergency off of the school grounds."

"Yes, Headmaster," the little elf told him and left with another pop.

He turned back to his shelf and looked at the instruments again. There was no doubt, the wards were down. The other instrument trained on Harry was acting very bizarrely, as it was spinning so much faster than it had ever before. He contemplated that until a knock on his door was heard. "Enter," he called.

"Albus? Tilly said there was an emergency." McGonagall sounded very concerned.

He turned around to see a worried looking deputy. He suspect she was about to become a lot more worried and probably angry at him. "Yes, we must travel to Surrey."

"Surrey?" She looked at him oddly for a second before suspicion came over her. "Do you mean to check on Harry Potter?"

"Yes." While he sounded calm, he was not on the inside. Little shocked or alarmed him at his age, but he feared it might happen tonight.

"Haven't you checked on him before?" Her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned as if she suspected the worst.

Albus knew those signs and prepared for the worst. "I've had a long-time friend who's a squib living nearby. She's given me a few unusual reports on him, but nothing alarming."

McGonagall's frown grew. "And why do you think there's an emergency then? What did she say?"

Her gaze was piercing, but he did his best to ignore it. "I have a monitor on the wards on his house, and the monitor says they've failed. Therefore, we need to investigate. Come, let's use the Floo to the Leaky Cauldron and we can Apparate from there."

She quickly moved in front of him to block his path. "What aren't you telling me, Albus? I can tell you're leaving something out."

He wondered if his Occlumency skills were slipping if she was able to figure that out. "I have another monitor on his health. It is working, but it is acting strangely. It's spinning too fast.""

"And that means what?"

"I don't know, Minerva. Believe it or not, I don't know. This shouldn't happen." While he was concerned about the wards going down, there was a good reason or two that could cause that. Not that they were good situations, but it could happen and for Harry to be quite alive, as his health monitor indicated. But the strange actions of the health monitor mocked him for his lack of knowledge and he did not like that. By the health monitor spinning faster should mean that Harry was comparatively happy, but that did not make sense with the wards collapsing. "Come, we must be off to investigate."

McGonagall finally nodded and turned, going first through the Floo Network. Albus was about to leave when he heard sharp whistle and then a small poof. He looked over at his shelf and saw that Harry's health monitor had just exploded and was now in about a half dozen pieces. He was officially alarmed.

Throwing a pinch of Floo powder into the fireplace, he followed his Deputy. He had barely arrived at the sparsely populated Leaky Cauldron when he heard the crack of her leaving. She was rarely that loud, so she must be in a hurry. He took an extra second to quiet his down.

Dumbledore quietly appeared in front of #6 Privet Drive, just in time to see Minerva stride up to the door of #4 and knock. He quickly walked over to join her and arrived just as the door opened. A tall thin woman answered the door.

"Oh, it's you. Unless you're going to fix it, go away and never come back." She stood there glaring at them, as if daring them to do something odd.

"Mrs. Dursley," Albus started in his best grandfatherly voice. "Might we come in to discuss Harry? Even though it is now becoming night, it might be better than discussing this on your porch."

She looked like she had eaten something distasteful, but she nodded and opened the door enough they could enter. She quickly closed the door behind them.

"Well, are you going to fix his mess?" she demanded to know.

"Perhaps if you could explain the problem, I could answer the question." Minerva was quiet for now and letting him handle the problem, and Albus was extremely grateful for that.

"The thief stole five thousand Pounds Sterling, that's what he did," she shrieked. Her comment seemed to cause heavy footsteps on the stairs behind her.

"Who's here, Petunia?" When the rounded the corner, the very large man turned red. "Oh, them," he spat. "So, are you going to give us the money or not?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand," Dumbledore told them, and saw confusion on Minerva's face too. "Why would he steal money from you?"

"Because the bloody freak ran away! He took my spare money and then ran away!" Spittle was starting to fly out of Mr. Dursley's mouth.

"When?" McGonagall quietly asked. "When did he leave?"

"Three days ago," Petunia coldly told them. "He left Wednesday after school, taking our money and enough food that it took me fifty Pounds to replace it."

Dumbledore detected a lie on the food, but that was unimportant at the moment. "What did the authorities say when you contacted them about his leaving?"

"We didn't," Petunia told them. "We were waiting on you, since he's yours anyway."

Albus wanted to pull his glasses off and rub his temples as he felt a headache coming on, but he resisted the desire. Instead, he closed his eyes for a moment to contemplate the situation.

"Albus!" he heard a Scottish brogue starting to become prominent. That was even a worse indicator of how much trouble he was going to be in when he got back to the castle.

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, thank you for the information, we shall be in touch." He turned to leave.

"What about our money?" Vernon Dursley shouted.

"As I said," Dumbledore threw back over his shoulder, "we'll be in touch." He thought he might have heard a spell being cast as he walked out the door, but decided that it was better not to know. Perhaps that little dally would help her to relieve some stress and not cast it upon him. He Apparated back to the gates of the school. The walk in the cooler night air would do him some good.

He heard a loud crack behind and then a thick Scottish brogue. "Albus, 'ow are ye goin' to fin' 'im?" That was the magic question, he thought. As the prophecy came to mind, he became thankful she did not know about it. "Well?" he heard from her again.

It was definitely going to be a long night.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**28 September 1986  
Sunday (Present)**

It was quiet in the forest. Too quiet.

It sent shivers down his spine and the primeval fear started to make him feel almost hyper-aware of his surroundings. Harry sat in front of his tent, wrapped up in his blanket as he stared off into the darkness that surrounded him. He felt like he was being watched by something dangerous, and that something was the forest itself, like it had a mind of its own. And in the deep darkness that surrounded him, Harry could do nothing more than dearly wish he had a fire to give him some light.

As strange as it seemed, the more he desired to have a small campfire near him, the more he began to feel a familiar yet alien tingly feeling rushing through his body. It started in his abdomen and slowly began to work its way through his shoulders and towards his hands. He just wanted a little fire, something to throw back the spooky darkness that filled the night around him.

Finally the strange tingling reached his fingertips. A split-second later, a small pile of branches and leaves in front of his tent burst into flames. Recoiling slightly in shock, Harry stared wide-eyed at the fire that now burned lively before him. What just happened?

Shaking himself out of his stupor as he noticed the fire slowly beginning to die down, he quickly climbed to his sore feet and collected a pile of leaves and broken branches, never venturing out of sight of the small flames for an instant. Gently piling on the brush and enticing the flames to return, Harry blew slowly into the fire, smiling slightly as he watched it quickly begin to grow in size.

After quickly clearing away the brush from around the fire and digging a small trench in the exposed dirt, Harry quickly withdrew back into his tent to grab his traveler's pack and grabbed one of his last apples, water bottle, knife, and a piece of bread. With the fire illuminating the area around him, Harry found it much easier to peel and slice the apple.

As he slowly ate his late meal, he couldn't help but wonder at the strange feelings he had felt before the fire had spontaneously combusted. Had that been his doing all along? It seemed to convenient to be true. But if it had been…could he do it again? And could he do any other things? That thought brought several potent memories for the boy; like the time he'd been blamed for turning one of Dudley's friends hair blue, or the time Aunt Petunia had given him a horrible haircut only to have the hair all grow back in one night, or that garden snake that Harry could've sworn he'd heard whisper something about needing water. Lifting his free hand, Harry stared at it slightly. Could he create fire again?

After finishing his apple, Harry turned and faced the fire. He tried to imagine that strange tingling feeling he had just before the fire came. He didn't know just what he was looking for, only that he wanted to know if he could touch that strange feeling again. On whim, he decided that he wanted to make the fire float in the air. Focusing on that, Harry tried to touch that power again.

_Floating fire_, he thought. It started slowly, very slowly. _Floating fire_. The tingle did begin to return and work its way through his body. _Floating fire_. Just as it reached his hands, it erupted from them. _Floating fire!_

Then, before his very eyes, Harry watched as his makeshift campfire began to rise off the ground until it was floating level with his eyes. He'd…done it. He'd done it. He'd done it! If Harry had been anywhere else, he would've let out a loud cry of joy at his accomplishment. Instead, in the presence of a foreboding forest, he just let a large grin form upon his face as he lowered his outstretched arms. Whatever force of power he was controlling, it obeyed him as he lowered his arms, the fire gently returning to its original perch.

With a sigh, Harry settled down for the night.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**29 September 1986  
Monday**

He wasn't sure what had awoken him. It certainly wasn't dawn as there wasn't even a hint of color upon the horizon, not that he could've seen it in the gloom of the forest anyway. It wasn't the crisp, cool forest air as he'd grown reluctantly use to it in the past three weeks. And it most definitely wasn't his internal clock that had tended to wake him before the Dursleys so he could begin his morning chores. Whatever it was that woke him, Harry quickly realized that he felt that compulsion in his gut that told him he was being watched. And it was by something very, _very_ dangerous.

As silently as he could manage, Harry climbed out of his tent and began breaking it down. Whatever it was that was watching him, he knew he didn't want to come back here if he managed to escape it. With his pack safely strapped to his shoulders and around his chest and his hunting knife stored in his pocket, Harry slowly and quietly began making his way back towards where he believed the train tracks were. But in the darkness around him, he wasn't entirely sure he was heading in the right direction.

It happened before Harry even had time to turn around. There was a loud clicking noise and suddenly he felt something long and hairy seize him around the middle and lift him off the ground, so that he was hanging facedown. Struggling, terrified, he heard more clicking before he was being swept away into the dark trees.

Head hanging, Harry saw that what had hold of him was marching on six immensely long, hairy legs. Two more were clutching him tightly below a pair of shining black pincers. They were moving into the very heart of the forest. Instincts screaming in his head, Harry fought to reach his hunting knife that was stored within his front left pants pocket.

He never knew how long he was in the creature's clutches; he only knew that the darkness suddenly lifted enough for him to see the sickly silhouette of his captor. It was a spider! Not a tiny spider that was barely larger than his thumbnail, but a spider that was easily the size of carthorses. And it was speeding through the forest on a long, thick line of webbing with all the speed of a sprinting stallion.

Finally managing to grab hold of his knife, Harry let out a loud cry of terror as he thrust the entire length of the blade up into the soft underbelly of the arachnid. The spider dropped him immediately as it began thrashing about, attempting to pull the foreign object that was wedged within its body out.

Thankfully for Harry, they hadn't been too far off the ground and there weren't any sharp rocks below him. He tumbled to halt in the cold, damp grasses and leaves of the forest. As he pushed himself quickly to his feet, a loud thud crashed into the underbrush nearby. The spider's writhing form continued to thrash about as it emitted loud, pain-filled shrieks in its death throes.

Panting and staring wide-eyed at the monstrous thing in the slight amount of light that reached the forest floor, Harry found himself unable to form any coherent line of thought as he watched it slowly die. It wasn't until he heard more clicking shrieks off in the distance that he realized that the danger was far from over.

Turning, he sprinted as fast as he could off in a random direction. Dodging trees, bushes, and rocks as best he could in the poor light. He must've been running for no more than two minutes before Harry heard an ominous skittering sound off in the distance. It was a sound that was quickly growing louder and closer. Were there more of those things after him now? He needed to find a place to hide! But where?

With no other options, he just continued to run as fast as his legs could carry him. Unfortunately for him, the sounds of his pursuers just continued to escalate until it clearly obvious that they had already surrounded him.

As he was racing around a fallen tree trunk, a stray root caught his foot and sent him crashing to the forest floor. As he was pushing himself up, Harry heard a horrifying shriek that sounded very similar to the spider he'd killed, except this one sounded enraged rather than dying. Looking up, Harry spotted a spider of similar size as the last one perched atop the fallen trunk above him.

As it leapt at him, instinct forced Harry rolled away from it as fast as he could. However he hadn't paid attention to where he was rolling and accidentally smashed against the rotten log of the tree, easily breaking through its rapidly decomposing form. Just before he was able to reorient himself and where his attackers were, there came a loud crack just beneath his body. That crack quickly gave way and Harry dropped like a stone into a small underground cavern, dirt and foliage covering him as he landed heavily on the muddy surface below him.

Shaking the dirt from his face and hair, Harry quickly pushed himself to his feet. As he was doing this, the shrieking of his arachnid attackers began echoing into the cavern he'd fallen into him. Looking up, he easily spotted the small hole he'd unintentionally created. There was a silhouetted form of countless spiders as they attempted to burrow into the hole to reach him.

Fearfully backing away, Harry kept his attention trained solely upon the creatures as he moved steadily further into the darkness of the cave. Due to his attention being so completely captured and focused away, he failed to notice the subtle drop of temperature that washed over him as he approached an underground river system.

With a cry of terror, Harry realized his mistake as he suddenly took a step off a cliff that he didn't know he was on and fell backwards into the rushing waters of the river below him. He quickly surfaced, gasping for air as he grappled in the darkness for something to grab and hold onto. However, due to his positioning, the flow of the river, and the pitch blackness of the cavern, he never saw the rock outcropping that he was being pushed towards.

His head hit the rock with punishing force, knocking him unconscious and allowing the river to pull his no longer thrashing back towards its destination.

That night, the boy known as Harry James Potter died forever.

* * *

**(Author's Note)** Another shout-out to **kb0** for the Dumbledore/Dursley scene, which was also part of the same chapter.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, though I apologize for its short length. I promise to do my best to make the next one at least three times as long. And it'll be the next chapter that truly reveals just what Harry is going to become and why. But the most tentalizing question is going to be: where? That's one you'll have to wait and see. But I do promise that this story is likely going to be a significant departure from a vast majority of the other fanfics on this site.


	3. A New Friend

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 3—A New Friend_

**29 September 1986  
Monday**

She was only little more than a week old and already it was clear that she was quite different from her three brothers. Despite the fact that she was physically quite similar to them, albeit with a slightly duller brown-red coloring to her scales, she was far more rebellious and adventurous than any of her siblings. Where they were content to remain cooped up in the nest waiting for their mother to bring them their next meal, she was willing to venture out into the unknown to explore the big jungle outside.

That was what she was doing now. She had only woke up a short while ago when the bright circle in the sky began to rise up and rays of light started to filter through the jungle canopy. Upon waking up, she had promptly discovered that her dear mother had left to go hunting yet again, leaving behind a half-eaten corpse of some large animal for her four hatchlings to eat for the day. If her father was still alive, there might even have been another animal available to gnaw on for flavor. After a small feast, she had quickly wondered out of her nest.

Following her keen sense of smell, she carefully wondered through the jungle underbrush, ducking into bushes and dodging between and through trees. Even as young as she was, she knew that there was always something out there that would be more than happy to feast on her small form. And that was why her brothers never joined her on these excursions. While not quite as reckless, they were certainly much wearier of the dangers of their home than she was.

As she was approaching a nearby river that flowed out of a deep hole in the cliff that her nest was near, a strange smell caught her attention. It smelled like fresh blood and waterlogged, but at the same time like sweat, dirt, and grasses. It carried with it a peculiar 'flavor' that she had never encountered before, and it certainly didn't smell anything like the animals that her mother brought home for breakfast and dinner. The only thing that she could really compare it to was if the food her mother brought home was 'hard meat', then what she smelled was 'soft meat'.

Curious but cautious, she changed her path of travel and crept over to where the smell was coming from. Without even so much as a rustle of the tall grasses, she was hiding in as she edged closer to the sounds of running water. She carefully peered through the wavering grass stalks.

There, lying on its stomach and unmoving on the shore of the river, was a small form that was almost the same size as herself. The creature seemed to be covered in multiple layers of bright multi-colored scales, it had some kind of large hump on its back, and a big mass of long and tangled fur perched atop what seemed to be its head. It didn't even have a tail! And although she was far from being an expert, the creature looked like it was barely older than a hatchling, like her.

For several long minutes, she just watched the thing from the safety of the grasses, just in case it was setting up a trap to lure her into or something. But it quickly became obvious to her that whatever it was, it wasn't even awake yet…plus she was quite thirsty.

Cautiously creeping out of the grasses, she kept a fair portion of her attention upon the creature as she slunk over to the river and took several mouthfuls of the delicious liquid. Thirst quenched for now, she slowly approached the still-unmoving creature. The closer she came to it, more it became obvious to her that it was not only not awake but also injured. There was a large cut upon the side of the creature's head, just above its left eye that had slow rivers of blood seeping out of it. That explained scent of blood she'd smelled. From the looks of it, the bleeding had almost ceased, which meant it would start to heal in just a few hours if left alone.

Gathering up her considerable courage and foolishness, she walked right up to the creature and bent down to examine it with her snout. It was through her inspection that she realized the strange layers of bright scales on it weren't actually its scales at all. Had it wrapped the skins of other animals around itself? Why would it do that? Wouldn't its natural scales suffice?

After to a slightly deeper inspection, she noticed that the creature's scales must be those patches of pale pink. Curious yet again, she gave the patch she'd uncovered next to its abdomen a lick. To her great surprise, she found that the taste of those pale pink scales was nothing like the animals her mother always brought home. In fact, her earlier comparison seemed to be right on: this creature was 'soft' meat.

A low groan emitted from the creature she'd found caused her to flinch back several paces as she dropped into a slightly defensive stance. It was waking up! Watching it carefully, she saw the creature's eyes flicker open several times, revealing bright eyes that had the color of fresh green ferns. Even though she detested the taste of the green foliage, she found that she liked the color of those green orbs.

The creature let out several more groans of what was probably pain as it pushed itself up onto all fours. And then it rolled over and sat upon its tailless behind. One of its forelimbs reached up to gingerly rub the red and bleeding wound while the other forelimb reached up to its shoulder joint. It came as a slight shock to her to watch as the creature in front of her so easily remove the large hump off its backside and set it to the side nearby.

Curiosity getting the better of her, she moved forward and began to sniff and probe the strange lump that it had just removed from itself. However, her sudden movement and loud sniffing noise quickly drew the creature's attention. Upon seeing her, the creature did want so many others did whenever they spotted something that scared them; it froze for just a split-second with its leaf-green eyes very wide. Then it let out a small yelp of surprise and fear as it scooted away from her.

Seeing that it wasn't going to attack her, she ignored it and returned her attention back to the strange bright sack it had removed. Sniffing at it, she noticed that it carried very much the same smell that the creature did, only that it smelled a bit more strongly like mud and dirt than grasses and sweat. And as she gently probed it with her snout, she could feel several strange things shift around inside it.

The creature suddenly making strange sounds quickly gained her attention now that her curiosity on the hump was momentarily satisfied. Lifting her head, she watched as it began making strange mumbling and growling sounds with its flat face and lips. She was quick to notice that the creature was likely not like herself: it didn't have the same kind of pointy teeth that she, her brothers, and mother all had. It seemed to have teeth more like the animals that her mother brought home, so it ate something else instead of meat.

For several long moments, the two of them just remained where they were and stared at one another. Growing bored of this game and losing her patience, she let out a small chirp and watched the creature's reaction. Other than flinching and letting out a low purr sound, it didn't move. But when its gaze flickered down the scaly lump that was still resting at her feet, she also looked down at it. Glancing up, she noticed that the creature seemed to want it.

This realization caused her youthful nature to take over; she wanted to play and wrestle, but none of her brothers were ever around when she wanted to. Maybe this creature would like to play? Crouching down, she bit into the scaly lump and lifted it up by one of the dangling pieces of that had held it to the creature's body. Bouncing forward and to the sides slightly, she crouched low to the ground with her tail standing tall in the air above her as she let out a playful growl.

The creature reached forward with its forelimbs, clearly trying to grab the lump from her clutches. Just before it could get too close, she bounced back several paces and was once again out of its reach. The creature let out a slightly louder bark like sound as she did that before climbing to its feet and standing erect. With a lunge, it hurried after her quickly retreating form, clearly intent on capturing her to reclaim its stolen possession. Oh, this was so much fun!

It wasn't long before the creature was able to corner her against the cliff wall and grabbed hold of its lump. But she didn't let up on her grip on it and soon they had a full-blown tugging contest over who could keep the lump. The creature was clearly bigger and had better footing, but she was not only stronger but heavier; it was a pretty even match.

Then, as she momentarily lost her footing in the loose dirt under them, the creature gave a mighty tug as she was disoriented, snatching the bag right out of her mouth with a cry of triumph. Unwilling to let her fun end so soon, she let out her own cry as she suddenly leapt forward and tackled it, easily knocking it to the ground. Instinctively, the creature began to flail and kick and try to escape, but she just rolled with it, using her own forelimbs to cling to its soft scaly hide easily, all the while letting out playful chirps of ecstasy. This was so much fun!

Finally, the creature landed on its back with her lying on its exposed stomach, both them face to face. Its eyes were wide and its breath was coming out in panicked pants. Purring out her enjoyment of their little game, she leant down and trailed her long, rough tongue across one side of its face before nuzzling into it lovingly.

The creature had frozen during her administrations of affection, but now that she was cuddling into it, it seemed to regain its sense of self and started to gently push her up and away as it tried to sit up. She let it ease her back. After a brief moment to catch its breath and to wipe her slobber off its face, the creature looked back up at her.

Slowly, hesitantly, as though expecting her to bite, it reached one of its forelimbs forward towards her snout. As its forelimb approached, she watched it carefully while sniffing at its flesh, and weary of what it might be trying to do. When she didn't make any threatening moves, the creature slowly closed the distance between them to lay its hand upon her snout and gently started rubbing it.

After only a few ministrations of this strange treatment did she realize that the creature's touch was surprisingly soothing, it made her bow her head slightly and lean into its hand while a soft purr worked itself out of her throat. She decided then and there that she liked this creature a lot.

Maybe she _wouldn't_ ask her mother to make him her next meal.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

The rest of the morning was a whirlwind of activity for the unusual duo. They played several games of hide-n-seek, tag, and wrestling, all of which she had a distinct advantage in due to her superior senses of smell, hearing, and sight along with her heavier and stronger body. But it was still a great deal of fun for the strange creature as well, who was very fast and much more agile than herself.

They only stopped sometime around when the bright circle was hanging directly overhead. Her unusual playmate had settled down and started digging inside that bright scaly lump it carried. After moving a few of the mysterious contents around inside, it withdrew what looked like some weird kinds of fruit and some soaked pieces of white stuff easily fell apart in its hands. The aromas from the foods it was eating smelled surprisingly appetizing to her. In fact she was sure she smelled a piece of meat hidden inside that soggy white mass.

Apparently her playmate had noticed her interest in the mess and correctly assumed she wanted to try it. It set the stuff done on the ground not too far away and let her play with it while it started into the fruit it was holding. After awkwardly clearing away the white stuff, she found the meat she had smelled and quickly snatched it up. It had a very different taste to it, not at all like what her mother brought home. The meat was so soft that it quite literally disintegrated on her tongue before she was even able to swallow it.

It was after their little meal that things started to go wrong. They had moved their little game of hide-n-seek to a rocky area by the river. In the rainy season, the area for which they were playing on would've been heavily flooded and extremely treacherous for even the strongest of swimmers. But now it was the perfect playground for their game.

Like usual, she was it and was hunting down her prey with all the silent grace that she could muster with her inexperience. He had actually managed to hide himself in a fairly good position this time and it was taking her a lot longer to find him, which only increased her own excitement in the game.

Needing to be higher to better survey the area, she leapt up atop a fallen tree and looked around carefully. From her elevated height, she easily spotted a huddled mass of pale pink and dark water-blue scales hidden behind a trio of large boulders a surprising distance away.

With an excited bark, she attempted to leap forward. However, in her haste and excitement, she failed to notice a broken limb of the tree she was perched on that was in her way. Just as she was leaping forward, her right foot got snagged by the limb and threw off her balance. She landed with a sickening crunch on her left knee, which caused an immediate and loud wail of agony from her as she collapsed to the rocky ground.

It was dangerous for her to make too much noise, she knew this. Scavengers and other predators nearby could hear her and get to her before her mother could find her. And there was the likely possibility that her mother wasn't even within hearing range of her wails. But at the same time, she had no other alternative but to wail for help and to express her crippling agony.

Her loud, pain-filled cries quickly got the attention of her playmate, which was very soon at her side. The poor boy seemed to be trying to figure out what to do to help. He carefully reached for her and started gently touching her body in various places, for which she simply ignored him. But when he unexpectedly touched her broken knee, she let out an ear-splitting screech and tried to bite his hand off for touching it. Thankfully for him, he was fast enough to remove his hand and lean out of her reach.

His search complete, the boy settled back to watch helplessly as she thrashed about on the ground. After an interminable amount of time for her, the boy began to move forward again, once again reaching for her injury. Seeing this, she again tried to bite his hand but he caught her chin and warded her attack to the side. As he did this, he rested his other hand upon her knee, sending jolts of agony through her body and causing her to wail louder.

In her agony, she had no real perception of time. So for the first few seconds of pain that he had inflicted upon her by putting any pressure on her knee, it felt like an eternity's worth of suffering. But due to her pain, she failed to notice the strange sensation of warmth that was filling her knee and leg. When she did finally notice and looked down to see what was happening, she could only stare at the strange red glow that had encased the creature's hands and her entire leg. After only a few moments of this strange warmth, she realized that the pain in her leg had lessened. It started out slowly at first but increased steadily as her injuries began to heal themselves at an accelerated speed.

When her leg stopped hurting entirely, she returned her attention to the creature's face. Its eyes were tightly closed, its jaw tightly clenched, and had beads of water running down the sides and front of its face. Leaning forward, she nudged into his closer forelimb, snapping his eyes open as he turned to look at her face, the supernatural red glow disappearing instantly. Then, with a sudden fit of heavy panting, he awkwardly released her knee as the sides of his lips moved into slightly upwards positions.

Though he wouldn't realize it until a little later, he had just made a lifelong friend.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

The day was almost over as the bright circle overhead slowly sank behind the horizon, filling the jungle with shadows and thickening darkness. This also brought upon a rapid fall of temperature, which compelled most animals to retreat back to their respective nests, dens, or herds as night steadily grew heavier. And this was just as true for the unusual duo, for which they were slowly approaching her nest.

However, the closer they came to her nest, the worst the smell of rotting meat became and the scent of her mother's urine and presence. Generally, these powerful mixtures of scents would've been enough to ward off even the most starving and dangerous of predators, even those who were larger and stronger than her mother. This was due to one universal fact: a mother protecting her young is a ferocious and unstoppable force of nature. If not for her insistent nudging and even outright dragging his small body across the ground in some cases, her new friend would've never come within a mile's distance of the stink he smelled so strongly.

As for her, she was positively bouncing for joy. She couldn't wait to show off her new friend to her brothers and mother, especially showing off how he managed to make her hurt leg better by holding it! For a creature as young as she was, the thought of anything bad that could wrong from wanting to introduce her friend to her family was about as inconceivable or possible as her suddenly growing wings and flying off into the skies. But it was due to her sheer bliss and excitement that she failed to notice the scents of fresh blood and several other foreign scents that were steadily growing stronger as they approached the nest.

In an ironic twist, it was actually her friend who noticed something wrong. Due to his severe reluctance to come much closer to the rotting animal corpses, he had been gazing intently at the ground below him. This was simply because if he looked up, he'd see things that would've made a lesser boy his age want to vomit or faint. Thanks to his fascinated inspection of the dirt below him, he was able to spot something… ominous.

Crouching down, he carefully examined a strange three-toed footprint that was clearly visible in the moist dirt in front of him. It wasn't one of his strange new companion's; she was bouncing playfully off to the side and it was several sizes larger than her feet were.

Letting out a low whistle to draw her attention, he carefully beckoned her over to him. Once she was close enough, he carefully angled her snout towards the footprint. Her attention was suddenly immersed in the footprint, sniffing it deeply and carefully. Abruptly her head snapped up and her entire posture had become taut with panic and alarm.

Perhaps it was with her sudden awareness of trouble in her paradise, or just simple luck, but whatever it was she was just barely able to notice the sudden arrival of an attacking predator from above. She shifted to the side and jumped a short distance away, well beyond her attacker's reach. At the same time, her friend had let out a strangled yelp of fright as he too noticed the attacker and backward fearfully away in the opposite direction.

As their attacker picked itself off the ground where it had landed somewhat awkwardly since it hadn't been expecting them to notice it, it turned and let out a very threatening hiss as it crouched down, teeth and claws ready and willing to tear into their flesh as it tried to decide which one of its two targets to attack first. After only a second's hesitation, it turned and attempted to pounce on her. It was much faster and stronger than her, mostly because it was an adult and she was still a hatchling. If she were an adult herself, it wouldn't have stood the least bit chance of winning, much less surviving, if it was even stupid enough to attack her then.

But she wasn't full-grown; it easily knocked her off her feet and heavily to the ground. Just before it could sink its teeth into her flesh and snap her neck, a small rock hit it in its right eye as a loud bark sounded through the forest. As the small predator quickly backed away, painfully clawing and rubbing at its injured eye, her friend rushed to her side and helped heave her back to her feet. Turning towards the foliage, they ran side by side through the brush, with her letting out loud wails of panic in a desperate attempt to get her mother's attention.

If her wails didn't get her mother's attention, they certainly got their attacker's and his packs' interest. After only a few moments of running through the trees, they heard the shriek of another attacker, this time it was lunging for her friend. However, as with earlier in their game of tag, her friend's nimbleness showed itself by allowing it to dodge away, causing the attacker to slam into a nearby tree almost full-force.

As they ran into a small clearing among the trees, two more predators jumped out in front of them, causing them to automatically slide to a halt. Behind them, two more predators emerged from the foliage, their two attackers from earlier. Loud, angry chirps and hissing filled the air as the four creatures communicated with one another, slowly circling and stalking ever closer to their prey.

Though she was terrified, she kept up a brave face by facing off against to the two monsters in front of her with her own small teeth bared angrily as she growled warningly. Behind her, her friend had backed up against her thigh and was whimpering out pitiful noises.

Suddenly the two in front of him lunged forward with loud shrieking battle cries. Instinctively, her friend threw up its forelimbs in a hopeless attempt to ward off its attackers. But just as they were almost upon them, a sudden pulse of something radiated from him, slamming into and sending the two attackers flying backwards. One of them slammed into a tree with so much force that its spine was instantly crushed as its body seemed to wrap around the trunk, while the other went skidding through the foliage and dirt a considerable distance away, but also undeniably dead as well. The sudden unexpected attack caught all three of the others by surprise, even his friend.

Suddenly faced with this strange creature and the ramifications of attacking it if it could fight back like that, the other two predators suddenly seemed much less confident. It was easily visible in the way they held themselves, the feathers on their necks and head lying flat against their neck, and the nervous chirps that were being exchanged between them.

However, just moments after that demonstration of power, her friend suddenly collapsed to its knees and panting heavily, its forelimbs trembling visibly as it attempted to keep itself from falling face-first into the dirt. This boosted the predators' confidence greatly and they moved in for the kill.

Just as one of them was lunging forward to finish them off, a flash of movement and a large, deep growl of rage sounded through the clearing. Though her friend had all but fainted, she stared up happily and lovingly at her mother's massive form as she crushed one of their attackers in her massive jaws. It took only a few bites to crush the creature's ribcage and break its spine. Once it was dead, her mother dropped it to the ground and turned to face the sole remaining predator, only to find it had long since run off in fright.

Turning her attention back to her hatchling, the mother easily noticed her strange companion. Despite crouching fearfully behind her daughter, it was staring up at her like she was some kind of demonic monster and was panting very heavily for some reason. Leaning forward, she sniffed her daughter carefully, easily smelling the pink and blue creature's musky scent all over her. Growling warningly to her daughter as she nudged her aside, the mother opened her mouth in preparation for making another kill.

Yelping in fear, the creature fell back on its backside and attempted to scout away from her massive jaws as they drew steadily closer. However, her daughter suddenly jumped between her and her prey protectively, surprising the mother greatly, especially when she noticed her daughter was growling threateningly at her. Her daughter wanted this one to live?

Snorting loudly, she nudged her daughter slightly aside as her jaws closed loosely upon her daughter's tail and her daughter's friend's leg. Picking them up with all the ease of lifting a feather, she carried them back to the ruins of what remained their nest. It wasn't until they arrived on the scene that the smaller two realized just what had happened. There were at least seven more corpses of creatures that had attacked them lying scattered throughout the nesting ground, as well the mutilated corpses of the three hatchlings.

Setting her daughter and her friend down in one of the few undestroyed spots of the nest, she crouched down and wrapped her tail around the duo. Before resting her massive head down to encase them in a makeshift shell of her body, the mother carefully listened to the sounds of the jungle around them. It was quiet, but that certainly didn't mean it was peaceful. The darkness was always ripe with predators. After losing three of her four hatchlings, she was not going to run the risk of losing her last. First thing tomorrow, she was going to have to find a new nesting ground since this one was clearly no longer safe for her wayward hatchling.

What happened to the creature that she brought home was of no interest to her.

* * *

**(Author's Note) **I'd like to thank my friends **FictionReader98 **and **kb0 **for beta-reading this chapter. They definitely helped me set the tone for the chapter, as well as assuring me that the mystery of Harry's friend was a pretty well-kept secret since neither of them could figure it out themselves.

If I have managed to keep the true identity of Harry's new friend as a relative secret, then I've done something right in this chapter. Though I suppose this final scene with their attackers and her mother's saving the pair would've likely caused quite a bit of suspicion for you guys. I wonder just how many of you will be able to correctly guess who and what they are. And I hope this chapter lives up ot your expectations, especially because this is the first true chapter of this story that I wrote by myself.


	4. Turbulent Years

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 4—Turbulent Years_

**16 April 1989  
Sunday**

He sat upon a large rocky formation that gave him an excellent view of the large savannah before him. He could see for rolling hills, waving grasses, and large animals for miles away. The cool spring wind pulled at his long hair and animal hide clothing, sending small shivers up his spine. But he ignored those as he refocused upon his work.

In his hands was his latest trophy, a large tooth that he'd broken off a large predator that had tried to eat him two days ago, or was it three days ago?

Shaking off his wandering thoughts, he very carefully returned to his work of using a piece of black volcanic rock to chip away and sharpen the tooth to a _very_ sharp point. If he was lucky and didn't break this one in two like the last dozen or so he'd tried, this one would make a wonderful addition to his growing collection of tooth daggers, spears, and various other weapons.

A faint rustling sound in the grasses beneath him instantly caught his attention. Quickly but quietly setting his project to the side, he dropped down and crouched low over the rock as he turned to look over in the direction of the noise. It was a small family of those bonehead animals making their way out of the forest and towards the awaiting savannah.

Long time experience had taught him that wherever they went, a pack of those ferocious feathered predators wasn't usually too far away. He needed to hide and leave the area soon, lest he got into another life-or-death brawl with one or more of the members of such a pack. With his small size and lack of strength, added to not having the help his only friend in this wilderness, he was pretty much defenseless against a pack of those things.

Gathering up his hopefully soon-to-be new tooth dagger and the sharpener stone, he placed them inside the pouch he wore under his shoulder and silently dropped into the tall grasses, all but disappearing from sight.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**31 July 1991  
Wednesday**

Albus Dumbledore was a very confused wizard. The irate witch in front of him did not help his present mood any. In many ways, today was a replay of the disastrous night of five years ago.

Minerva McGonagall sat in front of him holding Harry Potter's invitation to Hogwarts. The owl she had given it to had simply refused to take it. Yet, in the magical birth registry book in front of him, Harry Potter's name was clearly listed. The owl should have taken the letter unless Harry was dead. Yet the magical birth registry book would have stricken Harry's name if he was dead, and it had not. Each situation should not be true at the same time, and yet that was happening.

"Well?" she asked him for the third time that morning.

"I only have one explanation. He must be living under a Fidelius Charm; it is the only explanation that makes sense." He made sure he sounded and looked more confident than he felt about that statement.

"But Albus," she protested. "It is normally only the old Pureblood families that hide their old manor houses like that, and most of them are _Dark_."

"I know, Minerva." It was a chilling thought to the Headmaster. What would Harry have been taught and what would he be like after living with a _Dark family_? "We shall just have to be patient and keep our eyes open for him," he said with resignation.

She harrumphed as she stood to leave. Albus knew she was not happy and he was not either, but there was nothing either of them could do.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

Silent as the wind, a small but deadly hunter stalked his prey, just as it stalked him. It was an extremely dangerous version of the games hide-and-seek and wrestling, but he had long ago adjusted to these more savage rules than the ones in the versions he used to play. Now, it was no longer a game of amusement (or protection) that stopped when someone was tired or (usually himself) hurt. It was a game of survival, where one would die and one would live, usually off the carcass of the deceased.

With his spear held firmly in his grip and numerous daggers secured to his clothing, he crept through the waving grasses. His dirty, long dark hair might've stood out against the greens of the jungle, but the rains had been very few this season. Many of the grasses were dry and brown, more than enough for this skilled hunter to blend into the scenery, as he had learned how to shortly after he arrived.

This evening, he was hunting a creature that had recently begun invading his own hunting grounds and stealing his normal prey. Normally, he hated to hunt other hunters because, unlike their prey, they were _much_ more intelligent and thus dangerous. But unless he wanted to relocate, he had no other choice. Tonight, one of them would die, and the spoils would go to the victor.

What a way to spend one's birthday.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**13 September 1991  
Friday**

How long had it been since he'd last set foot here? He honestly had no idea, but it was definitely almost ten years to month. But last time he had been a wrongly accused and convicted criminal, now he was the first known escapee of the most dreaded prison in all of the Magical Britain. Or, as Sirius preferred to think of it, he was now a free man!

Lying hidden within a large rosebush near a Muggle home, the large black dog panted heavily. It had been a long, hard swim through those choppy waves and cold water. If he had been nothing less than supremely determined and stubborn, such a swim would've killed him quite quickly since he no longer had the same muscle strength he once use to.

As he lay there, slowly recovering his lost breath, he tried to focus his mind towards what his goals were now. Without the oppressive mental weight of the Dementors crushing down upon his mind, it was both liberating and agonizing for him. It was like his mind was filled with helium balloons that could drift wherever the winds so chose to blow them. To even focus a semi-coherent chain of thoughts was an exercise of extreme mental strength and willpower, in and of itself.

He wanted to find his reportedly-missing godson. He needed to find and/or kill that rat, whichever was more convenient. Where was young Harry? He needed a new wand. Where could he get some new clothes and maybe a shower? Why wasn't Harry in school like he was supposed to be? He needed to talk to Dumbledore as soon as he could.

It was this final thought that finally pierced the haze of unfocused thoughts that were littering his brain. It gave him the focus to lift his still-weakened body off the ground and begin the long, _slow_ journey northward.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**16 August 1992  
8:26pm, Sunday**

Lord Voldemort was quite displeased, which was putting it _delicately_.

The truth was that he was raging mad at the fool of a servant and vessel that he had been forced to latch onto. He had not only been unable to figure out the magic that Dumbledore had used to hide the Philosopher's Stone inside the Mirror of Erised, but had been fired from his teaching position within the school. This was due in part to his unauthorized invasion of the defenses for the Stone, but mostly because of the pathetic display he put on while teaching his classes.

Now with the Stone destroyed, he had to find a new way of returning to life. He had long ago taken measures to ensure his survival against death with the creation of his six Horcruxes. So he was still no worse off than he had been, but he still hadn't acquired himself a new body of his own and not a shared one. While any willing body would suffice, what he really wanted was a young, strong body like what he had when he had been a teenager…

That thought caused something to click in Voldemort's mind. It seemed…possible, likely even. He'd have to do extensive research and experiments into the matter. None of his earlier research had ever indicated it was possible or much less survivable. But if it worked…

A sickly serpentine sneer crossed Voldemort's face as he began to plan. One way or another, Lord Voldemort would return.

Sensing his master's sudden change in mood, his vessel brought his mug up to his mouth to hide his lips from view as he very quietly asked, "Something pleases, Master?"

"Yes," Voldemort answered, just as quietly so as to not attract any unwanted attention from the other wizards and witches around them in the pub. "Contact Lucius Malfoy, I have a task required of him."

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**28 May 1993  
5:55pm, Friday**

With a patience learned after decades of lying dormant, the spirit of one young man watched with cold eyes as the young girl slowly died before him. It really was a pity that it had to have been a pureblood like her to have helped him awaken and regain his strength, especially because there were so few purebloods left in the current Magical World. And although she was technically a rather uninteresting and somewhat unappealing female, she'd have made an excellent breeding specimen for producing many more pureblood offspring in the future.

They were locked safely within an underground chamber that only he, in all his great wisdom and infinite power, was aware of. Not even the Muggle-loving old fool knew of this location, and even if by some miracle he did, he'd never be able to enter without the _proper_ password.

As his thoughts turned towards his upcoming goals, a serpentine sneer crossed his face. With the old fool being driven out of Hogwarts, all the roosters killed, and the dying witch's wand at his disposal, there was now nothing to stop him from completing his long postponed quest of ridding the school, and world soon following, of those disgraces and abominations to magical potential called Muggleborns and Mudbloods!

Of course that was his original plan, but that had drastically changed after the girl had informed him of some very disturbing news. A mere infant had been the cause of his older, future self's fall from power? An infant who had since been titled 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' for supposedly surviving the Avada Kedavra cast by his older self who was undoubtedly more powerful than the infant. The boy had been placed into hiding by Dumbledore shortly after that incident and had been expected to attend Hogwarts when he reached the proper age.

Yet he didn't.

The Boy-Who-Lived had become the Boy-Who-Vanished. His absence had sent a considerable portion of the Wizarding World into an uproar. According to the girl's father, who was an insignificant Ministry employee, they had Aurors, Unspeakables, and just about every other non-important wizard and witch scouring Great Britain for months afterwards. They had started with searching many of the homes of Wizarding families and all magical enclaves with very few exceptions, not even the incredibly wealthy and influential Malfoys had been spared. They even braved Muggle Britain to find the boy, but not even a hint of his presence had been found. They had recently begun turning their attentions more abroad, some of the more paranoid or ambitious fools started believing that one of the rival countries had stolen their symbol.

That would be his first task when he gained a corporal form. He would find the boy and destroy him so completely that no one would dare question Lord Voldemort's power again! And with loss of their pathetic idol, the Wizarding World would truly fall to his immortal power and he would rise supreme as the ruler of the planet! No one, not Dumbledore, would stand against him then.

The time was growing closer now. He could feel it, the girl's life spirit was nearly completely absorbed. In comparison to what it had been when he had first started, there were barely a few wisps of life left. It would only take a few more minutes to take them for himself.

An unexpected noise drew his attention towards the entrance of the Chamber. Moving to hide behind one of the nearby giant snake statues, he watched with silent malice at the figure who'd dared enter his domain uninvited. The figure was heavily cloaked with a large, black hood that concealed all but his jaw from view. There was a definite gait of power and absolute confidence in his stride as the man walked boldly forward.

Eyes narrowing dangerously, the young Lord Voldemort assessed the man's threat level to be exceptionally high. Especially considering he had managed to enter in his Chamber unnoticed until now. Gripping the girl's wand tightly, he prepared to launch an Avada Kedavra at the first sign of aggression from the stranger.

Stopping just in front of the girl, the mystery man knelt down and reached for her. But rather than feel her fast-fading pulse, the man opened her robe and withdrew the diary. As soon as the man touched the diary, the final wisps of the girl's life drained away and young Tom Marvolo Riddle suddenly felt more alive than he had ever felt before. He had finally returned!

Standing back up, the man looked it over critically, handling it almost lovingly, before turning to the hiding young man and stated, "So, it is finally complete."

Moving forward with the girl's wand hiding behind his newly-materialized school robes, he came into view and stared coldly upon the stranger. "Who are you and how did you get down here?"

The man seemed to sneer under the shadow of his hood before replying. "You are not the only one capable of great things, young Tom."

The easy mention of his name not only caused him to flinch ever-so-slightly, but caused his hackles to rise immediately. With only a flex of his power, he fired off a powerful Expulso Curse at the man. The man merely waved his wand in a half-hearted attempt and sent the curse flying into the Chamber.

"You have the power and strength to be the greatest of the Dark Lords to have ever lived," the man continued easily, not seeming to care for Tom's fierce glare. "But you lack the knowledge and finesse to wield it properly. I can teach you how to make men like Dumbledore cower at your feet, how to enslave entire species, and how to become the man you are destined to be."

As he had been saying that, Tom noticed something strange about the man in front of him. Unlike most witches and wizards, Tom had the very unique gift of being able to sense a person's magical aura. Over his years in Hogwarts, he had learned to control his aura, which had helped to amplify his charisma greatly. The aura he was sensing off the man was confusing. At the core, the man had weak and bland aura of a second-rate wizard. But floating around and throughout him was an almost ghostly aura that held far more power than even he or Dumbledore held. This man could very easily kill him, if he so desired.

"Why do you wish to help me?" he asked quietly, keeping his stolen wand at the ready.

Rather than answer immediately, the man reached up removed his hood, exposing his full face to the dim light of the Chamber. It took only a few moments before Tom recognized the face in front of him. It was Lord Voldemort, his older self.

"Because we are one and the same," Voldemort answered, sneering. "Come with me, young Tom, and I will teach you all you will need to know to rule this world."

A serpentine sneer pulled across young Tom's face. Yes, he could learn much from his future self. His future self would most certainly teach him all he knew. And when the time was right, Tom would seal him into an artifact as a Horcrux and take up the mantle of Lord Voldemort once again.

Kneeling down, he bowed his head as he incited, "I will pledge myself to your teachings, my Lord. I will do as you command, so long as our goals remain the same."

Voldemort sneered at the display his younger self was putting on. This was too perfect! "As my pupil, I will teach you what I know. I will be the mind and you shall be the body and icon. Together, we shall rise from the ashes and bring an order to this world like has not been seen in millennia. So, henceforth, you shall be known as Lord…Delamort."

"Yes, my master," the newly-named Delamort intoned.

"Rise," Voldemort commanded, his voice echoing down the long Chamber.

A new era of Darkness had just begun.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

From his perch upon his big-little sister's broad snout, he watched as the herd of spike-tails lazily waltzed through the forest. After almost six years of life and growth, she had grown in tremendous leaps and bounds. She easily towered over him, even though she still was a juvenile and nowhere near her full adolescent height. With that great growth in height came an even greater growth in speed and strength; she could throw him about like leaf in the wind without even trying anymore.

He had grown as well, but nowhere like she had. He was perhaps a good six to eight inches taller and had strong and toned muscles covering his frame. His hair had grown very long and thick, reaching as far as his lower back. In the forest, it was almost perfect camouflage since it could very easily meld into the shadows of bushes and trees, and it shifted with the winds, making him that much harder to see for some of the more visually-challenged animals.

For the small herd that he and his sister were hunting today, it was going to be fairly challenging to say the least. The animals were unusually aggressive when compared to others of the same size. And they were considerably faster and more agile than their bulky, awkward frame seemed to suggest. But they had one crucial weakness, one that the pair of hunters would exploit to the fullest capability they could.

A soft growl from his sister, whom he'd long ago named Allie, informed him that it was almost time to go. She'd evidentially found the one that she figured would be the best target, probably the one that was he was watching as well. The one that was limping quite heavily at the back, its left forelimb clearly broken from a fall it had taken recently. Silently, he reached down and patted her lightly upon the top of her head, signaling he too was ready.

With a loud roar, Allie suddenly burst out of the foliage that they were hiding in. Though making a lot of noise was a bad idea, especially when hunting, it was sometimes necessary to startle the prey into moving in the direction that they wanted them to go. In this case, her roar was merely to spook the rest of the herd into stampeding forward, leaving the wounded one behind and alone.

And it worked like a charm. They would eat well tonight.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**1 January 1994  
6:00am, Saturday**

Contrary to many beliefs about the desert, they did experience extreme changes in weather. The desert was a climate of extremes, with very little in the terms of moderation. In the summer, the temperatures easily soared over 100 degrees. The winter months could drop as low as a chilling 20 degrees, especially at night. And though they didn't experience the wonders of snowfall, it did have a tendency of raining much more frequently during the winter. It was not an understatement to say that the winter months were among the dreariest in the desert.

And the weather perfectly mirrored the emotion state of one certain red-haired wizard as he was riding his horse into the desert. It had only been a few months since he'd heard the news, but still it felt as though he'd just learned of his little sister's death yesterday. As the only daughter in a family full of males, Ginny had been doted on somewhat more than the rest of them had been. But rather than return home to mourn with the rest of his family, Bill Weasley had chosen to remain in Egypt and throw himself into his work.

Unlike a fair portion of his fellow employees, Bill had chosen to dress in a manner fairly similar to the Muggle archeologists who often excavated the river valley. With only a simple tan shirt, a pair of cargo shorts, and his shoes along with a sunhat, he looked strikingly reminiscent of a Muggle college student. The only real thing that set him apart from Muggles was the wand holster he wore on his belt.

Cresting a sand dune, Bill gazed down at the familiar setting of his 'office'. Surrounded by Muggle-Repelling and Notice-Me-Not wards, the excavation site of a recently uncovered ancient Egyptian wizard tomb was being slowly and carefully cleaned of sand and studied. Including Bill himself, there were at least a hundred different wizards and witches from various countries of all over the world gathered here. What made this site especially different from most other tombs, magical or not, was that it was located quite a significant distance away from the others in a large canyon that only recently been discovered when the ancient wards finally failed. Bill had been stationed at this particular site for little more than three weeks, when a group of Muggles had accidentally stumbled upon it.

Clamoring down from his mount, Bill guided his horse to one of the hastily erected horse stalls. It was a small but fairly modest place that even included Cooling charms to help the horses relax and recover from their long journeys through the sand. It was as he was filling his horse's water barrel with the precious life-giving liquid that someone ran up to him.

"_Bill, where have you been?_" it was Jarold Chambers, from Denmark, asked in German. "_Westerfer was looking for you! He says that he may have found the entrance to a new chamber and he needs your help for the—_"

"_Let me guess_," Bill said interrupted, also using German. "_He needs me to do my thing. Where did he find this supposed chamber?_"

"_Along the northern ridge_," Jarold answered immediately, excitement easily detectable in his voice. After all, how often did someone find a tomb that was still filled with _actual_ treasure? Slim to none. "_He said that the magical aura emitting from behind it is __**enormous**_."

However the trace of excitement instantly brought a frown to Bill's face. He didn't like Jarold for a variety of reasons, but the chief among them was his greed. Jarold was more interested in making himself rich through whatever treasures they may find than by doing their jobs and confiscating the (usually) dangerous magical artifacts and cursed treasure they found. And if Jarold was already this excited, then that meant that Westerfer was confident that they'd found something good.

Nodding, Bill hurried after his colleague. It wasn't an especially long walk, only about twenty minutes actually. But when under the unforgiving heat of a desert sun, it was still a breath-taking hike, winter or not.

As they were approaching the spot where Jarold claimed Westerfer was, Bill too began to feel the slight tingle in the air. It was like the area was filled with static electricity, only fair more subtle. Very few wizards and witches of the modern era could really feel the subtle changes of magic within their immediate surroundings, Bill was among the very few that could. But even Bill's sense of environmental magical awareness was just a child's toy when compared to Westerfer's senses. It was said that (aside from his wand) Westerfer couldn't touch objects that were filled with powerful magic because they'd burn his skin like a red-hot fire poker.

Turning around a large boulder, Jarold came to an immediate halt, causing Bill to almost run into him. Stepping around his companion, Bill caught sight of what had caused him to suddenly stop. Westerfer lay on the ground with a large swelling rising up on his left temple and his right arm was twisted at an unnatural angle. In front of him was what could only have been the entrance to the new chamber, it had been blown open and standing around the entrance to the side was a group of seven horses.

"_This—What happened here?_" Jarold asked in a quiet, scared voice.

Without answering, Bill moved forward towards Westerfer. Kneeling down, he cast a quick diagnosis charm. Turning back to Jarold, he said, "_Jarold, take Westerfer back to the camp. He has several broken ribs and his arm's dislocated._"

Jarold had his eyes glued to Westerfer's unmoving body as he slowly approached the fallen man, his face unnaturally pale. "_While you're there, call the Egyptian Aurors and tell them to send a recovery team here. Something's going here._"

Reaching out and grabbing Jarold's still unresponsive form tightly, he shook him slightly as he barked out, "_Did you hear what I said?_"

Snapping out of whatever funk he'd fallen into, Jarold stuttered out, "_R-Right, take Westerfer to c-camp, the Aurors, r-recovery team… Wh-What are you going to do?_"

Releasing Jarold as he stood back up, Bill just shook his head as he muttered out, "_I don't know, I'll think of something_." Without another word, he cautiously made his way into the exposed tomb entrance.

It was a slow, painstaking journey through the tomb hallways. He didn't light his wand, lest it attract not only the people or creatures that had invaded the tomb, but could also set off a variety of vicious curses that could still be active. Then he had to make sure that he didn't touch anything, being extremely careful where he placed his feet, and that he didn't make so much as a whisper of sound, also in case he set off the any ancient Egyptian curses.

He had gone perhaps ten minutes into the darkness, evading no less than six curses, when he finally caught sight of what was happening up ahead. There was a flickering light, suggesting a torch or flame, and there were at least six voices that were bickering back and forth. Slowly coming upon the sight, Bill crouched low to the ground as he stared down into the spacious cavern in front of him.

There were seven men in the subterranean cave below him. The cave looked like it had been blasted open since there was a lot of dust and rocks littering the floor in front of the entrance. The men all had their backs to him, dressed in common desert-wizarding clothing. They were digging through the cavern in front of him with little regard to whatever history or magic that they were disturbing. Three of them were shifting through a large wooden chest with loud clanging of what were probably gold and silver coins. Two were haggling over a set of gem-encrusted necklaces and Egyptian headdresses. One of them was reading over a series of hieroglyphs on the far wall. And the final one, likely the leader from the way he was holding himself, was standing back and watching the others as they went about their business.

"_Hey, boss!_" the one reading the hieroglyphs called out in what Bill recognized as Spanish. "_These say that this is the tomb of one of Remises II priests!_"

That statement drew an eruption of excited voices from all the others in the chamber and a hushed gasp from Bill. If that was true, then this tomb was even more valuable, and dangerous, than he'd originally thought! The priests of Remises II had been among the few Egyptian wizards of the ancient era that even modern wizards feared. It wasn't so much that they had done terrible things like many past and future Dark Lords had, but because they had had such power and skill to compete with Moses when he had returned to Egypt with a highly-powerful magic staff to free his people.

"_Hey, I got something over here!_" a second voice called out. One of the men pillaging the chest suddenly stood up and turned around holding an elegant box in his hands. Rushing over towards the boss, he set it on the ground and drew his wand, carefully opening it with a simple Alohamora. As the door to the box slid open, Bill felt a potent wave of magic wash over him from the box.

From his position, he couldn't see into it the box. But whatever was inside it drew gasps from the surrounding men as the leader knelt down a lifted whatever was inside it out. It was only after the man had stood fully back up that Bill realized just what it was; a golden scepter with a large ruby pommel stone held securely to one end of the small staff.

Bill understood immediately what that scepter was: it was an early version of the modern wizards' wands. It was a _priceless_ artifact that belonged in a wizarding museum. That thought drew a frown across Bill's face. He couldn't let these men take that scepter. Who knew what would become of it, or what it could or would do if it fell into the wrong hands.

He watched for several long minutes as the men began congratulating themselves on finding something so rare, powerful, and priceless. Though after a few minutes, their leader had refocused their attention to clearing out the rest of the chamber.

As he placed the scepter on the ground near one of their duffel bags, the leader said something that caught Bill's interest. "_Dig with your hands, not your mouths. We need to get this stuff to Lord Delamort before the next full moon, unless you want him to sic the werewolves on us_."

"_With that scepter,_" one of the henchmen muttered loudly. "_I bet we could knock that little punk off his high-horse like the impudent whelp he is._"

As the leader started scolding the man, Bill pulled out his wand and cast a silent Levitation spell upon the scepter and raised it up into the air, towards his waiting arms. However, as soon as the magic of his spell reached the ruby, a bright red light began glowing brightly from its center. The red light quickly drew the attention of the tomb raiders, but by then it was too late. Snatching the scepter out of the air, Bill turned tail and ran as fast as he could towards the exit, the tomb raiders screaming curses (both actual and verbal) after him.

Exiting the tomb, Bill quickly shielded his eyes from the blinding sunlight as he called out, "Jarold! Anybody?" But no one answered. Lowering his arms, Bill scowled angrily at the sight of the empty canyon in front of him. "Where the hell are the Aurors when you really need them?"

Shouting from the tomb instantly reminded Bill of his pursuers. Running forward, he grabbed one of the horses and hopped on, quickly sending it into a fairly fast run down the canyon towards the camp. Glancing over his shoulder, he watched as six of the men quickly followed suit and mounted their remaining horses to give chase.

Drawing his wand, Bill pointed it over his shoulder and called out, "Confringo!" A portion of the canyon floor a short distance in front of the men exploded, sending three of the horses into panicked shambles as they recoiled, bucking their riders off. The remaining three dodged around the crater and continued to give chase. A flare of red light caught Bill's attention. Swinging his wand around, he cast a quick Protego and deflected the Stunner to the side.

Kicking his horse a bit harder, Bill pointed his wand towards the canyon wall and cast another Confringo, blowing a large crater into the cliff and sending debris raining down behind him, the powerful explosive winds even blew off his sunhat. Though the wizards were able to shield themselves from the debris, one of the horses slipped under the loose rocks and collapsed, crushing the man's leg as it toppled onto its side.

Chuckling darkly, Bill refocused his attention ahead and was relieved to see the camp quickly coming into view. Up ahead he could see quite a few people running about, no doubt startled by the explosions that he was setting off. He could even see a squad of Aurors running towards him. A sudden Expelliarmus hit him solidly in his back, throwing him off his horse's back and sent him bouncing painfully across the rocky ground, his wand traveling in another direction as the horse continued running forward. Rolling over onto his back, he scrambled painfully against his scraped knees to get back onto his feet and run.

The last two of his pursuers were approaching him very quickly; not seeming to care that there was a group of Aurors quickly closing in on them. One of them threw another Stunner at him as the other one, the leader, pulled his horse to a halt. Reacting instinctively, Bill raised his hand to protect himself from the red bolt, unintentionally moving the scepter he had still gripped in his hand forward. Just before the Stunner struck the ruby, a bright blue sphere formed around Bill and reflected the Stunner back towards its caster. Caught by surprise, the man wasn't able to properly protect himself from his own spell, causing him to fall from his horse unconscious.

Walking forward confidently, the leader grinned slightly down upon Bill's stupefied expression. "Give it up, kid," he said in perfect English. "You've got heart, but that scepter belongs to me."

"It belongs to Remises II's priests," Bill snapped as he climbed to his feet, holding the scepter protectively behind him.

"And they're dead, along with all of their descendents!" the leader snapped back as his expression hardened.

"This belongs in a museum!" Bill barked. "Not in the hands of a mercenary or tomb raider!"

"_What's going on here?_" demanded an Egyptian Auror as they finally reached the pair, wands out and ready.

"_This boy has stolen my property_," the man stated in Egyptian, not taking his gaze off Bill's.

"_This doesn't belong to you_," Bill repeated sternly, gripping the scepter tightly.

"_I'm afraid it does, kid_," the man stated evenly. "_By law of the Egyptian Ministry, unless funded by corporations like Gringotts, any ancient artifact that's found in these tombs is hereby the property of the man who's discovered it, as long as they register it in the Egyptian Ministry's Department of Magical Artifacts._"

Before Bill could retort to that statement, the lead Egyptian Auror moved forward and raised his hand demandingly. "_May I please see this artifact, sir?_"

"…_Sure_," Bill said uneasily, holding the scepter up.

The Auror quickly snatched it away and carefully examined it. Giving it a slight nod, the Auror turned and presented it to the man. Turning back to Bill, he only said, "_It is the law. Have a good day._"

As the gathering of Aurors quietly withdrew, Bill turned his gaze back upon the tomb raider leader. The man looked like he was ready to smile at Bill's ugly expression but was respectfully holding it in. Closing the distance between them, he took his hat to reveal a mess of dark hair underneath it.

"You lost today, kid," he said quietly, once again in English. "But that doesn't mean you should give up."

Without another word, he placed his hat upon Bill's head and pulled the rim down, covering Bill's eyes. When he looked up again, the man had already vanished from sight.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**22 November 1994  
7:33pm, Tuesday**

Charlie Weasley was _not_ having a good day. But the sad thing was that he'd practically begged for this to happen. He just had to be among the qualified Dragon handlers who'd volunteered to accompany the trio of dragon hens who were being shipped to Hogwarts to play a role in the legendary Triwizard Tournament.

They had only arrived late last night. They had attempted to awaken the slumbering hens in the darkness, hoping that the lack of sunlight would help to calm them down. No such luck, especially with that vicious horntail. It had taken a concentrated effort of all the handlers just to subdue the horntail long enough to put it back to sleep. Once that was taken care of, they'd prepared the nest of eggs for the hens.

But it wasn't discovered until shortly after noon that the Hungarian horntail's clutch of eggs had hatched earlier than expected. Now the handlers suddenly found themselves dealing with not only three adult hens, but half a dozen horntail hatchlings who, like their mother, were very vicious little critters. It had taken no less than two hours to subdue the horntail mother and another hour to collect the six hatchlings. Those hatchlings were now in a fireproof crate with a one-way ticket to the dragon preserves in Romania, where they'd be reunited with their mother once her role in the Tournament was complete.

Headmasters Dumbledore and Karkaroff and Madam Maxime had been quite displeased to hear the news that the eggs had hatched earlier than expected. This put the Tournament officials into a very awkward position. They could either postpone the First Task to await the arrival of a new dragon hen and her eggs, they could change the Task to something else, or they could skip the Task. Needless to say, none of the aforementioned options had been particularly appealing to any of them, even if not even they knew what the First Task truly was about.

Sitting heavily upon a conjured chair, Charlie tried to figure out a way out of this mess for his beloved Headmaster and school. It would be nothing short of a humiliating for not only Hogwarts and young Cedric Diggory, but also himself and the other dragon handlers if they could figure this out. But how do you get a dragon hen to protect something that is no longer there to need protecting?

"Hey, Charlie!" a loud voice called from off to the side. "Take a look at what I've found!"

Turning, Charlie glanced unhappily towards his fellow handler, Edward Stawn. The lad was severely lacking in his animal-handling skills and was only passable in terms of magical prowess and knowledge. It was only his absolutely love of all things draconic that had allowed him to become employed in the preserve.

"What is it?" he asked irritably.

"Just follow me!" the lad said excitedly, practically bouncing off the ground. "You'll have to see it to believe it!"

Sighing in defeat, Charlie climbed to his feet and hurried after his companion. The other handlers could easily hold the fort without him for a few minutes; it wasn't like he was the senior handler among them, just one of the best.

"I was taking a little break after we loaded the hatchlings," Edward was saying excitedly in front of him as he walked the short distance into the Forbidden Forest. "You know, I do that after we get very busy like that. Anyway, I somehow ended up in here and guess what I found right...around…Where was it…There! See? Over there!"

Passing a mossy boulder, Charlie turned to look in the direction that Edward was pointing. What he saw drew him up short. Resting in a slight depression in the soil was a small nest of five dragon-sized eggs. But…how was that possible? There were no more wild dragons living in England, due to medieval wizards and knights hunting them to near-extinction and the new regulation laws that called for all dragons to be relocated to specialized preserves, which there were none in England.

"Do you know what this means?" Edward was saying, mostly to himself since Charlie wasn't listening too hard. "Dragons are coming back to Great Britain! We can open a preserve here and not have to move away from home to go to work anymore!"

As he continued to ramble on, Charlie moved forward towards the nest. With his wand, he cast several detection spells upon the area. There was no trace of any dragons in the area, nor had there been any dragons in the area for at least two weeks! What kind of hen dragon left her eggs unattended for so long? Did the hen perhaps get killed while out hunting? That didn't seem too likely since dragons were among the most powerful magical creatures in existence, only another dragon could really kill an otherwise healthy dragon.

Kneeling down before the nest, Charlie carefully reached down to feel the eggs. As he expected, the eggs themselves were quite warm, meaning that they were indeed fertilized and ready to hatch in the near-future. Brushing off some of the dirt and mucus that was covering the egg he was feeling, a frown found its way onto Charlie's face.

Like any worthwhile handler, Charlie could recognize the breed of the dragon by the color, size, and markings of the eggs, but these eggs baffled him. These eggs were large enough to be horntail eggs, but they had a slight brown coloring that was strongly similar to the German Fire-tongue dragon. But there were even small patches of pale green covering the egg, a few shades too light to have been from the common Welsh Green. What kind of dragon breed were these? Were they...from a previously undiscovered branch of dragon?

"You know what?" Edward continued rambling on. "With these, we won't have to wait for that Chinese Fireball to be shipped up from the preserve. Just change the colors, and we'll have that horntail hen guarding them like they were her own."

"Not likely," Charlie interrupted politely. Turning back to his companion, he said, "but if we get the approval from the Ministry and Headmasters, we can definitely try. Come on, lend me a hand here. We need to get these back to camp as soon as possible."

"Right!" Edward said, smiling widely as he rushed forward.

* * *

**(Author's Note)** Merry Christmas! This is my gift to all of you! I hope you like it, because I'm not sure I was able to hold to true to the various characters' personalities. Please tell me whether or not I was able to.

And now, some trivia for the lot of you:

Delamort = de la mort = from death (French)

Who can guess what scene/movie inspired that portion with Bill in Egypt?


	5. The Different Lizard

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath**  
By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 5—The Different Lizard_

**24 November 1994  
6:00am, Thursday**

The forest was as eerie and foreboding as he remembered it being when he had first seen it all those years ago. It certainly hadn't changed all that much from what it had been just a few weeks earlier when he followed Allie to watch over her as she laid her first batch of eggs. Even though she was still only about half-grown, Allie had reached the point of puberty in her life and was now capable of mating. Considering the extreme competition her species had to face with the other large predators out there, he easily understood her reasons for mating so early in life, to ensure the continual survival of her species. And unlike some of the bigger and more dangerous predators that roamed their jungle haven, hers was a species that was slowly dying away. In fact, excluding her dead mate, it had been over at least nine months since he'd seen another of her species.

Allie needed to protect her eggs, but she also needed to hunt and eat. Her mate had been a very, very old creature who had decades' worth of experience under his belt. However it seemed that mating with Allie had been his final act in life, he had passed away in his sleep just two days later. And while he himself could hunt just as well as Allie, he lacked the brute strength and power that she and her dead mate possessed. So he couldn't bring her any carcasses of reasonable size to sate her hunger for too long.

That was where he had come up with a truly radical idea that even he, a reckless daredevil, found dangerous.

It had happened about a year ago when he had been running through the trees. He had spotted a cave in the cliff that surrounded the entirety of the prehistoric jungle they lived in. He had spent a good week exploring and examining the cave and its vast network of tunnels. And that was when he'd discovered something that scared him to his bones. He found a way out of the jungle world by following a subterranean river upstream. He had found a way back to the world that he had run away from. The thought of returning to that cold, cruel world and leaving his jungle paradise behind had terrified him on so many levels.

But after much thought and pondering on the dilemma that his beloved big-little sister faced, he finally decided that it was the only choice she could make that might have the faintest chance of her and the hatchlings' survival. After all, what better place to keep your eggs protected from other predators than somewhere where they don't roam? And that giant spider-infested forest seemed like the safest place for her eggs… Giant spiders didn't eat eggs, right?

It had been a fair amount of time since their last check-up now, so he and Allie had decided to go visit the eggs. It was still about a week or two shy of them being anywhere close to hatching, but one can never be too cautious.

As had become common once she was large and strong enough, he was riding upon his big-little sister's back as she stalked through the alien forest at a fairly quick but silent pace. The weather here was a great deal colder than what they were use to, but they could survive it for now. And although Allie had a wondrous sense of smell, he was keeping a very close eye upon their surroundings as she slunk through the trees. His encounter with those spiders had left one critical impression upon him, even after all this time: you never know what's out there in this forest.

His attention was quickly drawn away from potential problems to one that was far more immediate as Allie came to a sudden stop and a deep, furious growl vibrated through her entire body. This growl quickly turned into a low, dangerous roar as she shifted her weight, stomping and scraping the cold ground with her talons in her rage. She released another roar that echoed off into the distance, frightening all animals within hearing distance and caused flocks of birds to take flight in terror. As he crawled up her thick neck to peek over her head, he quickly understood her reaction.

Her eggs were gone!

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**7:30am**

She wasn't scared. Really, she wasn't! Thanks to Madam Maxime's discovery a few days ago, she had had plenty of time to work out a possible plan for defeating or otherwise evading her draconic opponent. She wasn't scared of facing off against a dragon, not in the least.

Her face _wasn't_ pale and her knuckles _weren't_ white from clenching her fists so as to keep her fingers from twitching sporadically. And she most certainly wasn't pacing slowly through the tent because she trying to calm her nerves. No, she was trying to relieve some of her pent-up energy in preparation of what was coming. Yes, that's what she was doing!

Currently the Hogwarts champion was battling his dragon, the Welsh Green. The Durmstrang champion had gone first, taking on the Swedish Short-Snout in less than ten minutes. But what was really driving her nerves and adrenaline into high gear was that _idiot_ loudmouth's ridiculous commentary! Couldn't he shut up for less than thirty seconds so she could relax? Didn't he realize he was completely ruining her last peaceful moments on this Earth by letting his big mouth flap so loosely in the winds?

Shaking her head, she tried to keep her mind off the possibility of what _could_ happen and on what she would _make_ happen. Since her opponent was the Hungarian Horntail, the one that Madam Maxime had warned to be the most dangerous, she was going to have a hard time dealing with the hen dragon. Her primary strategy was to get close enough to the Horntail so she could use her Veela charm to distract it long enough to get her egg. However, this strategy was very risky because of her just how powerful dragons were; the Horntail might be able to shake off the affects before she got close enough. Her next strategy was a combination of using transfigured animals to distract the Horntail with herself under the Disillusionment charm to sneak in from the side while the dragon was concentrating on the animals. And, if all else failed, her final back-up was to use the Conjunctivitus Curse, no matter how much she abhorred using such a blatantly obvious spell.

Despite being in an enclosed tent, she couldn't stop the slight shiver that ran down her spine when an unexpected gust crept through the openings of the shelter. Why did those fools in the Ministry have to have the Tournament be sponsored by the English? It was so cold, dreary, and boring here. Hogwarts, for all its magical beauty and power, was nothing more than mere castle of ancient times long past. A structure that still carried many of the same problems as the ones of Dark Ages had; it was smelly, had cold and drafty halls, and was very damp. It was nothing like her majestic school in southern France at all.

In fact, Fleur's parents had been rather hesitant with allowing her to participate in the Tournament due to the recent attack that had taken place at the Quidditch World Cup. A Dark Lord was on the rise in Great Britain again and the incompetent fools in the English Ministry were likely doing nothing to stop it, if they were even aware of it.

As a descendent of a magical creature that was skilled in emotional manipulation, when she had first arrived in Hogwarts, Fleur had felt something strange about the students. There was a lingering aura of darkness and hate emanating from them, even the Gryffindors who were renowned for their defense of the 'Light'. This subtle aura of darkness and hate was like a deep, festering wound that had long ago become infected and had steadily grown into a rotting limb that, if not destroyed _quickly_, would soon take the life of the ones infected. But the sad truth was that it had already and for a long time been slowly killing the English magical society. Suffice to say, it was _really_ starting to make Fleur wish that she had heeded her mother's warnings and decided not to participate.

It was as this small hesitation was passing through her mind that the loudmouth's words tore through to her consciousness and returned her to reality. He was in the midst of yelling—"That was a _clever_ move indeed—pity it didn't work—wait, _he's got the egg!_"

Applause shattered the wintry air like breaking glass; Diggory had finished. It would be her turn next in just a few more minutes. The imminent moment of her turn seemed to twist her perception of time strangely. For the agonizing moments it took for the whistle to sound, time seemed to have slowed to a crawl, torturing her in its sleuth properties. Then, when the whistle finally sounded, it seemed to suddenly kick start itself; her adrenaline shot up to dangerous new levels of intensity as she stalked towards the exit of the tent for her challenge.

No matter what happened next, Fleur was sure that her life would never be the same after this Task was over. One way or another.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

"I wonder what that girl's gonna do," Ron mumbled out, his words barely recognizable around the chocolate frog he was eating, his tenth or eleventh one so far.

"Who knows," Hermione answered a tad sharply, which earned an annoyed glance from her only friend in Hogwarts.

The two of them were sitting in the stands with the rest of the Hogwarts' student body. Despite being located in the midst of their housemates, there was a noticeable gap surrounding the duo. This was because the two of them were something of outcasts in the Gryffindor House. Ron was isolated from the House due to his less than friendly mannerisms and loud, arrogant personality, despite his less than average skills in magic and classes. Hermione was the know-it-all bookworm, bossy, and the teachers' pet. It was only natural that, despite their differences, the two outcasts would seek a tentative friendship with one another. Though lately that friendship had been somewhat strained due to the arrival of a certain blonde Beauxbatons' champion; Ron had been partially exposed to her Veela charm and predictably made a complete fool of himself.

Unnoticed by anyone in the audience, a figure appeared on the top of the stands' roof. The figure was crouched very low to make as small a profile as possible. In silence, he surveyed the moving stands, the din of the hundreds of students, and searched for his sister's lost babies. And when he found them, he turned and dropped slightly out of sight.

"Look, there she is!" someone called out as the final champion made her way into the arena.

Though normally not a spiteful or snooty person, it gave Hermione a certain satisfaction to see that the girl's face was a deathly pale color, especially when she first spotted the Hungarian Horntail on the opposite side of the arena.

Just as the Veela was beginning to make her approach through the jagged rocks of the arena, a loud roar tore through the air. It brought everyone, including the duo in the arena to a momentary halt as they looked around in confusion. That roar hadn't come from the Horntail and the other two dragon hens had been forcefully Stupefied after their bouts in the arena.

A second roar sounded, this time much closer. Many of the spectators began to slowly panic. There was something out there, something big, and it was coming towards them! Where was it coming from?

The second roar also set off the Horntail in the arena. It reared back on its hind legs, spreading her wings wide, and let loose her own mighty roar, as though challenging the first one.

That was when the ground started shaking. The students, especially the younger years, began to shift in their seats nervously. If they'd known from which direction the beast was coming from, they would've been the first to turn and run. But as it was, they were forced to remain where they were in fear that they might actually run _towards_ what they were trying to run from.

The sound of wood breaking, followed by a section of the stands suddenly exploding inwards by a massive frame finally sent the masses into full panic mode. The creature crashed through the Ravenclaw stands section, sending a majority of the students scrambling over one another in their rush to escape to a safer area. The rest of the audience were too busy grabbing their wands and facing the creature that dared intrude into their domain, but what they saw caused most of them to freeze in shock.

It was a giant reptile, strikingly similar to a dragon. Yet it had no wings and its front limbs were much too short to have been much use in walking or running. The creature's hide was a rusty-brown color, covered in jagged pale green stripes. The creature stood easily one and half meters tall at its hips but its overall length was considerably longer, almost six meters. But, compared to most dragon species and especially the horntail, it was puny. The creature took a quick look around at its surroundings before focusing its attention upon the hen dragon not too far away.

"What is it, Hermione?" Ron asked, his voice torn between awe and fear with his eyes bulging at the sight.

"I…I think it's an Allosauridae Allosaurus from the Suborder Therapod," she uttered quietly, her voice perfectly miming Ron's.

"_In English,_ _**please**_," Ron snapped. He very much wanted to bang his head against something for his own stupidity. He should've known she'd say something that he'd not understand!

"A dinosaur," she whispered. "But they're extinct…aren't they?"

Whatever Ron might've said in reply was cut off when the pair of reptilian creatures began exchanging deafening roars, challenging one another and trying to get a feel of the other's threat level.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

Momentarily forgotten by the audience, Fleur crouched down behind a large boulder to watch as the two titans faced off against each other. Was this somehow part of the Task? She couldn't help but ask herself that question repeatedly. If it was, then the Tournament officials must've done some heavy-duty magic upon the tent to keep her from realizing that there was a second creature she needed to deal with. However, as much as she may have wished it so, that didn't seem to be the case.

From her hiding spot in the shadow of the boulder, she watched as the two monstrous reptiles exchanged first roars and then snapping bites. The horntail had jumped forward slightly, placing herself between the newcomer and her nest, bobbing her head slightly as she kept her attention fully upon the strange intruder. The other creature, a dinosaur as far as Fleur could guess, was slowly stalking forward, moving around or behind various boulders, making false lunges and a lot of deafening roars.

To Fleur, it looked like the dinosaur was attempting to either get around the dragon or to get it to attack. But why would it do that? There had to be a reason for it, right? Shaking her head slightly, Fleur forced those thoughts out of her mind. It was a known and accepted fact that dinosaurs were just big, lumbering brutes that lived in ancient swamps. They didn't have the brain power to think up strategies!

As if to challenge that belief, the dinosaur suddenly charged forward. The horntail took a deep breath and sent a massive fire blast towards the rushing dinosaur. With an agility that seemed simply unnatural for a creature so large, the dinosaur skidded to a halt and hopped to the side, hiding behind a large boulder from the fireball. Then, as the fire ceased, it used its forearms to help it climb over the top of the boulder and take a massive leap towards the recovering dragon. Even dragons, as powerful as they were, couldn't launch fire blasts of that massive size without needing a few moments to catch their breath, and the dinosaur was attacking in that finite time limit.

The horntail shuffled awkwardly out of the dinosaur's reach as it came down, claws and talons ready and willing to strike. As the horntail attempted to take a quick swipe at it with its tail, the dinosaur lunged forward again, its large maw snapping down mightily on the horntail's left wing, eliciting a pain-filled shriek from the victim. The cracking and breaking of the horntail's bones in its captured wing limb sent a shared sympathetic wince of phantom pain down the spines of all the spectators, no matter how badly they'd deny it afterwards.

The dinosaur seemed able to guess the dragon's reaction perfectly. It quickly released the broken limb and bounced out of the creature's reach with yet another example of near-ballerina grace and speed. With a triumphant roar, the dinosaur backed away slightly as it lowered its body posture, tail waving about high in the air. It was an invitation for the dragon to rush forward, one that the horntail willingly obliged in. Awkwardly rushing forward thanks to its crippled left wing, the horntail gave chase to the dinosaur, fires raging furiously in its red eyes.

Realizing that the large combatants were not only moving away from the nest but towards her as well, Fleur quickly scrambled away, doing her best to remain hidden behind the boulders. Though, given that their attentions were mostly upon each other at this point, this was an easily accomplished task for the quarter-Veela. A loud roar and a sudden blast of hot air quickly drew Fleur's attention as she turned back towards the large reptiles. The dinosaur was clearly trying to move the horntail as far away from the nest as it could. Though it seemed to disguise this by making a lot of feint rushes and roaring loudly, it was a trick that the rage-addled horntail was easily falling for as it continued trying to blast it with its fire breath.

Seeing her chance, Fleur made a careful dash towards the nest.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

Unnoticed by all, a figure had once again appeared above the roof of the stands and had been carefully watching the battle between the two titans. He had quickly and easily recognized his sister's strategy for it was one of their most commonly used ones because it worked very well. Allie's feints and rushes were all part of a greater strategy to lure their prey into a position that would allow him to move in and attack.

That being the case, he was patiently waiting for his part in the attack. He watched, carefully gauging the winged creature's movements and trying to determine where it's most likely weakest spot was. Its fire breath was worrisome, but nothing that they couldn't handle, they'd dealt with worse on a regular basis after all.

Allie was gracefully angling the dragon closer towards the stands, causing a lot of the people beneath him to yell and scramble over each other to get away from the large combatants. He paid them no mind since they weren't important…unless they decided to attack. Allie was standing just in front of the stands, roaring defiantly at the dragon as she pawed the ground. Those were actions to show that she wasn't planning on backing away anymore and was ready to attack again. It was an open challenge to the dragon, practically begging it to charge forward.

Normally Allie wouldn't act so aggressive towards a creature that was several times her own size and weight, but there was more on the line than there normally was. She had to show _everyone_ that _she_ was the boss and queen here. And he would show that he'd stick by her side no matter what, even if it meant attacking a monster that was literally over ten times his own size and weight.

Reacting to Allie's challenge, the hen dragon stomped forward and swung its tail around, attempting to impale the Allosaurus on its spikes. With instinctive reflexes, Allie turned with the strike, only receiving a grazing cut along her right shoulder and abdomen; a minor wound that only sting for a few hours, nothing life-threatening. But it still pissed her off!

Rushing forward, Allie attempted to sink her teeth into the horntail's vulnerable throat and pierce the jugular. The horntail hen shifted her weight and leaned just out of the way, Allie's teeth snapping shut mere inches away from her intended target. Before she could properly regain her balance and footing, the horntail suddenly lunged forward, using her superior bulk and weight to knock Allie to the side. Stumbling backwards, Allie easily tripped over an unexpected boulder that was in the way and she collapsed to the ground in a mighty crash. As the dragon quickly moved in for the kill, many of the audience, mostly the male students, let out a loud cheer for the horntail, eagerly waiting to see the dragon finish off the stupid dinosaur.

Scowling darkly at the cheers that had suddenly erupted at his sister's fall, he decided that he couldn't wait any longer. Reaching up to his shoulder sling, he withdrew his spear and ran forward. Reaching the edge of the roof, he leapt off and raised the spear over his head as he fell silently towards his target. Landing lightly upon the dragon's backside, he let out a roar of his own as he thrust the spearhead deeply into the tender shoulders of the beast.

The dragon reacted as all beasts do when they get injured. It reared back with a pained yelp for a brief second before it turned to see how or what had caused its injury. By that time, however, he had already yanked his spear free and slid lightly down to the ground, beneath its current line of sight. As it was turning its head to look at its shoulder injury, he jabbed his spear upward, puncturing the flesh at the base of its neck, aiming for the jugular.

Once again the dragon recoiled and yelped in pain. Bouncing backwards in much the same way that Allie had done, he lightly jumped upon a large boulder off the side, away from Allie's quickly recovering form. Holding the spear in one hand as he crouched upon the boulder, he quickly reviewed his various attack strategies and which ones would possibly work against this creature.

Though he hadn't noticed due his attention being trained on the dragon before him, his sudden appearance and attack had brought an immediate halt to all noise and actions of the audience. Everyone was staring at the strange boy that was so defiantly standing in front of a full grown and justifiably angry hen dragon. He was dressed in a mass of what seemed like leather or animal hides, which included an open cloak with loose sleeves, and there was a long curtain of filthy black hair waving in the breeze. He was barefoot, crouched on a boulder, holding a simple spear. Yet a quiver of arrows and bow could be easily spotted hanging over his shoulder and there seemed to be numerous daggers covering his body in various locations, mostly around his torso and legs. But for the people who could see it, it was his face that was the most captivating feature. There was a trio of large, jagged scars running vertically down his face, arcing over both his eyes and to one side of his nose. And his eyes were the most brilliant color of green that any of them had ever seen before.

It was both the hairy boy's sudden leap to the side and a large fireball shot by the horntail that awoke the audience from their stupor. Many were yelling out at the boy for his stupidity, booing him for interfering in the dragon vs. dinosaur fight, or were attempting to demand answers from their peers. But for all the noise, the hairy boy was focused solely upon the creature that was now trying to fry him with its breath.

Running to the side, he tried to use the horntail's unstable left side to his advantage. To a degree, he was successful because his movement to that side caused the dragon to try to follow him. But thanks to its injury, it had to lean heavily upon its uninjured right wing, making it quite difficult for it to adjust its position. Dodging around a large boulder and charging forward, he jabbed his spear savagely into its already injured wing joint before withdrawing away.

Roaring out in pain and rage, the horntail swung its tail forward with a speed that most humans would've had trouble dodging. Dropping to the ground on all fours, the tail sailed harmlessly over the hairy teenager. As he was pushing himself back up to his feet, the tail came back around for a second try. Despite still being in an awkward position, the boy leapt up into the air, his body rolling over it as the tail once again missed him.

Rather than attack again, the boy turned and seemed to disappear into the boulders for several agonizing moments. The horntail, realizing its prey was hiding from it, let out a loud roar before releasing a strong blast of fire, scorching the surrounding landscape. This tactic had the expected result of forcing the boy to leap to safety as the flames rushed towards his hiding spot from his position on the dragon's other side. Forgoing hiding again, he charged forward with his spear at the ready.

However, the dragon was clearly waiting for this. It shifted its weight and lashed out with its uninjured wing, hitting the boy solidly in his torso, and sending him flying back the way he came before he slammed into a rock with punishing force. Seeing her hateful prey had been momentarily knocked senseless, the horntail took a deep breath and unleashed a powerful blast of fire upon the downed teenager. All he could do was yelp and cower away from the rushing flames by wrapping his cloak protectively around his body.

The audience, for its part, was partly horrified by the brutality of the fighting taking place, shocked at the boy's prowess and courage (or stupidity) of fighting such a monster, and quite amused at his pitiful attempts to kill the beast. When the horntail finally got that fire blast to connect, a good portion of the audience let out sighs of resignation, since almost nothing could survive fires of that magnitude and power.

Ceasing its fire attack, the horntail let out a low growl as it watched the scorched area for any movement. Seeing none, it began to turn back towards where its earlier challenger had fallen, only to find it missing. Maternal instincts suddenly kicking it, she turned and quickly spotted the dinosaur as it was crouching down and scooping up the entire nest in its forelimbs. The dinosaur didn't seem to feel the various spells that were being shot at it from the dragon handlers that were trying to stop it. Not even when the ten handlers attacked with synchronized Stunners, all spells just bounced off the dinosaur's hide.

The horntail let out a loud roar, trying to distract the dinosaur from stealing her eggs. But before she could do little more than that, movement from the corner of her eye caught the horntail's attention. Turning, she spotted that small, hairy pest was back. He had survived her fire blast! Granted, his cloak was scorched black and still smoking, but he was otherwise unharmed. He was in the air, having leapt along the tops of the boulders and was now positioning to face her, bow drawn and an arrow cocked back. Landing lightly atop yet another boulder, he let loose the arrow, sending it flying up at her face and impacting with her eye. Once again she let out a pained roar as she thrashed about, trying to remove the small splinter from her sensitive optical organ.

Seeing that he'd accomplished what he'd intended, distracting the dragon long enough for Allie to get her eggs, he turned and sprinted over towards where his sister was making a fast departure.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

Fleur was _not_ having a good day! The dinosaur had recovered from its fall with a speed that greatly surprised her and then, while its human companion was distracting the horntail, the dinosaur had made a beeline sprint for the nest. Rightfully fearing what the dinosaur's intentions were, Fleur had also kicked into high gear as she tried to reach the nest first and acquire her golden egg. But the dinosaur had reached it first, easily passing by Fleur as though the blonde was crawling across the rocks.

Fleur wasn't sure what to expect when the dinosaur had reached the nest, though the words 'crushed' and 'eaten' did seem pretty appropriate descriptions. However, she most certainly wasn't expecting the dinosaur to kneel down, sniff the eggs, and then suddenly grab hold of the entire nest! It was at this point the dragon handlers realized that they could no longer just stand back and allow the dinosaur to wander about. They charged in fast and furious, multitudes of spells flying though the air. Not even the ferocious horntail could've stood long against that kind of barrage, in Fleur's honest opinion. But the dinosaur just seemed to shake itself, as though trying to relieve itself of an irritation, before it turned and started to move away, back towards the hole it had created upon its entrance.

Screwing up all her courage, Fleur leapt out of her hiding place and into the path of the charging behemoth. Concentrating upon her Veela powers, she launched the most potent dosage she'd ever mustered before upon the beast before her. She was trying to woo the creature into at slowing down, if not stopping altogether. The dinosaur did glance down at her, but otherwise didn't seem affected!

Brandishing her wand, she fired a fast Conjunctivitus Curse at the creature's face. The dinosaur merely rolled its head to the side, allowing the magic to bounce off its large jaws, but didn't even falter in its running. Realizing that she was still in its path of travel, Fleur quickly turned and attempted to duck behind the boulder. However, as she was doing this, the dinosaur's jaws flashed down and caught her by her long, blonde hair. She let out a loud cry of agony as she was yanked off the ground and thrown to the side by her hair, the dinosaur's putrid breath washing over her as it did so.

It wasn't until a few seconds after she'd been thrown that Fleur realized that she'd dropped her wand at some point after the dinosaur had grabbed her. With a loud cry as she flew through the air, she braced herself for the inevitable impact with the unforgiving ground and rocks. She hit something, but it was anything but unforgiving as it wrapped itself around her.

_The forest_ with its _trees_, _grasses_, and moist _earth:_ that was the first thing that went through her mind as she caught the scent of the thing that had hold of her. But then a strong blast of brimstone and smoke assailed her nostril, causing her to wince at the potent smell that overrode the pleasant smell that she'd first picked up. Realizing that she'd closed her eyes when she'd been thrown, she opened them and looked up slightly at her rescuer. He wasn't looking at her since he was busy preparing to land on the ground below them, but Fleur couldn't help but stare at him.

He was only a young, green eyed boy, and that was certainly not very attractive to her. But there was a look of complete focus in his eye, which spoke of a maturity that was far above his years. She could feel it through the rough hides he was wearing that he had a solid body of muscle, something that every girl could appreciate in a guy. However, the large ugly red scars that covered his face were definite turn-offs in her opinion, as was the very long black hair was that was trailing behind him in the winds.

Landing with surprising ease considering he was carrying a passenger, the boy merely glanced down at her to ascertain that she was alright. Then, with no amount of chivalry or caring whatsoever, he promptly dropped her to the hard ground below as he turned and sprinted after the departing dinosaur.

A real knight in shining armor? Yeah, right!

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

Allie had already vanished through the hole that she had created, the nest with her eggs safely held in her arms. He needed to hurry and join her before these people regained their senses and attacked. They had already stayed far too long!

After leaving behind the…_extremely_ pretty girl, he quickly sprinted for the hole as fast as he could move. But it apparently wasn't fast enough. He felt something quite hot suddenly slam into his torso from the side, knocking him from his feet and sending him flying through the air from the force of the blow. Instinct and reflexes allowed him to roll with the blow and land on all fours, digging four trails in the dirt below him as he slid to a halt.

Glaring fiercely in the direction that the attack had come from, he let out a loud growl as he climbed back to his feet. A sudden flash of what seemed to be red lightning shot down from the audience closest to him that had been watching him. He had just enough time to see the incoming lightning bolt and turn to face it before it suddenly slammed into his gut, knocking him off his feet yet again. And yet again, he managed to land on his feet, digging two more trails in the dirt as he held up his hands, clutching the captured bolt of raging red lighting between his gloved hands.

However, like lightning, it quickly became unbearably hot in his hands. Attempting to cool his hands down, he juggled the bolt between his hands until he lost his grip. The red lightning continued on the path that he'd accidentally sent it towards and slammed into the face of a certain loudmouth who had been yelling in an unnaturally loud voice since before the battle had even started. It was with no small amount of relief that he watched the man suddenly get knocked backwards and sent careening through the crowd of older people he was sitting with.

Losing interest in the drama that was unfolding in the professors' box, he turned and once again sprinted for the hole. He vanished through the hole without even a backwards glance, running after the quickly vanishing form of his sister. Behind him, chaos suddenly broke out among the students and officials as they attempted to figure the significance of the various events that had just taken place.

* * *

(**Author's Note**) Well, there it is. The grand unveiling of just what Allie is. I must confess my surprise and offer congratulations to **Glrasshopper** and **Matthew** **Blackheart** who were the only ones to guess that Allie was an Allosaurus. Though I'm not surprised that most of you correctly guessed the _Last Crusade_ reference, I admit to being slightly smug at the fact that my hint towards Allie's species wasn't so easily noticed. But let's be honest, whenever someone thinks of a large meat-eater dinosaur, the T-Rex is one of the first to come to mind. That is in part why I chose an Allosaurus.

And so it's happened, what many of you likely knew or suspected would happen: Allie has unintentionally stolen Fleur's golden egg! What is going to come of this unexpected development? How will this affect the Triwizard Tournament? Only time and the next chapter will tell!

Trivia time!  
What is the reference behind the Chapter Title?


	6. A Hazardous Task

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 6—A Hazardous Task_

**24 November 1994  
8:45am, Thursday**

Growling angrily as she picked herself up from the ground, Fleur gingerly rubbed the spot on her bum from where she had landed roughly on the ground. That _little_ _brat_ had some _nerve_ just dropping her like as a sack of potatoes. The next time she saw him, she was going to curse him so hard that his great-great-grandchildren would be cringing in pain!

Looking around, she was just barely able to watch as the boy was blasted by a Stunner cast from the audience. Much to her surprise, the boy hadn't toppled over like was what was suppose to happen when hit by one of those, instead he somehow managed to catch it and remained standing on his feet. How did he do that? It wasn't until he made a quick exit after throwing the captured spell into Mr. Bagman's face that Fleur realized that his pet dinosaur had already vanished.

And it'd taken her golden egg!

Scowling, she hurriedly ran over towards where she dropped her wand. It took a few moments, but she found it and was quickly rushing towards the hole in the stands, ignoring the sounds of the audience, including her classmates as some of them tried to yell at her to stop. But they didn't understand what was at stake here. That egg was her task, and she'd be damned to Hell before she lost her magic to the Goblet because of that magical contract for not trying!

Once outside, she hurriedly looked around and easily spotted the retreating duo. The dinosaur was already disappearing into the Forbidden Forest, still clutching the nest in its arms. Ahead of her, the boy was sprinting at speeds that honestly surprised her, he was almost halfway across the field that lay between the arena and the Forest, and he'd only had a minute or so head start against of her!

As she immediately went tearing after them, Fleur dearly wished she'd had a broom to use because then she'd be able to catch up to them in no time whatsoever.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

It was chaos in the arena from the moment the dinosaur had burst in. As the professors and various officials were trying to make sense of what was happening, the multiple dragon handlers had been rapidly arguing amongst themselves on whether or not to intervene. The tournament officials had been quite clear in their instructions: only interfere if the champion was in imminent danger of dying. The dinosaur and that strange boy in leather were obviously _not_ one of the champions. With that being the case, they had finally decided to hold back and let things play out naturally.

Throughout it all, Charlie Weasley had watched with wide, fascinated eyes. One of his childhood obsessions had been dinosaurs. He had loved them so much that he'd once managed to talk his mother into letting him purchase several Muggle dinosaur books, since they seemed to know more about them than wizards did. As he grew older, that love of dinosaurs had eventually evolved into a love of dragons since they were the only known species of dinosaur to have actually survived the extinction. Even after all this time, he still continued to regularly visit the Muggle world to purchase the most up-to-date information on dinosaurs.

So seeing that Allosaurus come to life before his eyes and engage in an ages-old mortal combat with one of its cousins, it was like a childhood dream come true. Even if he wanted to, Charlie just couldn't muster the strength of will to move from his near-petrified state of shocked awe when the Allosaurus made the dash for the nest and stole the eggs. Thus he was one of the few handlers to remain in the stadium when the dinosaur, its human companion, and the blonde girl had made their exit. The other handlers quickly shuffled into their tent to grab their brooms that had been set aside for emergencies and then raced off after them.

The roar of the crowd was deafening, making it nearly impossible to hear anything. Finally shaking himself out of his stupor, Charlie noticed that the Horntail was still thrashing about as it tried to remove the arrow from its eye. Grabbing his wand, he moved forward to help the poor creature before it started getting violent.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

The professor's box was awash with nearly as much chaos as the stands. Throughout it all, Professor Dumbledore couldn't help but feel his mind go into slightly stupefied state. That boy…had looked familiar, though he couldn't understand how. The long, dark hair and those grotesque facial scars had helped to make him suitably unrecognizable. But he had felt an almost familiar déjà vu overcome him when he'd finally been able to see the shape of the boy's face and features. They were features that reminded him of another dark haired boy from many years ago, who had gone on to bravely defy the Dark Lord three times with his wife.

Was that boy…Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Vanished? But that was impossible! If that boy was truly the Harry Potter, Dumbledore should've known immediately that he was on the grounds. One of the Hogwarts' wards allowed the Headmaster to locate and identify any given student at any given time. Hm, something to think on later…

Finally pulling himself out of his dumbfounded mindscape, Dumbledore took notice of the chaos around him that had been induced by the theft of the egg and shocking abilities of the mysterious boy who caught a magic spell.

Lightly tapping his throat, he cast a silent _Sonorus_. "SILENCE!" His magically-enhanced voice cut through the din like a hot knife through butter. Once the din of the crowd had faded as they turned their attentions towards the Headmaster, Dumbledore continued, "Thank you. Now, Prefects, please escort the students back to their respective Houses in a calm and orderly fashion, and remain there until your respective Heads of House summons you."

Tapping his throat again to remove the spell, he turned back to face his fellow Professors and the various Ministry officials.

"Professor, what is the meaning of this?" an extremely agitated Madam Maxime demanded. "Who was that boy? Why did that…that _thing_ steal the eggs? If this is a conspiracy, I will see you thrown into Azkaban!"

"I must concur," Karkaroff spoke up, his face an interesting mixture of a grin and frown. Dumbledore had no doubt that he was grinning at the misfortune that had befallen the Beauxbatons champion, and frowning at the thought of Hogwarts somehow orchestrating this fiasco.

"You dare to accuse the Headmaster of setting this event up?" Professor Moody asked in a dark tone, his magical eye seeming to spin off its axis in his effort to view everything happening at once. "I'll have you know, Karkaroff, that—"

"Thank you, Professor Moody," Dumbledore interrupted politely. "But I believe we have more pressing matters to attend to. Would you be willing to take this discussion to the staff room? I do believe that it would make things much more comfortable for us there."

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

Heaving for a much-needed breath, he sat down on a tree that his sister had accidentally toppled in her rush to reach the safer depths of the forest. As much as he could run and sprint at speeds that were beyond what most others of his kind could normally do, not even he could keep up with Allie when she was running full speed with a purpose. She had left him in the dust, unintentionally or not, and likely wouldn't come back searching for him since she knew he could take care of himself.

Looking down at his cloak, he couldn't help but feel saddened at the damage it had taken from that fire blast. The material had been thoroughly burned and charred black. It was giving off a hideous burnt smell that could've been picked up by animals, especially predators, and use it to judge his general location long before he was even aware of their presence. It was with a great heave of sadness that he removed the cloak from his body and threw it to the ground. Without the big cloak covering his torso, the sleeveless, light brown leather shirt he wore was finally revealed. He was going to miss that cloak because it had been one of his more favorite ones. At least he still had a spare one hidden away in his favorite tree down in the jungle.

As he was doing that, he noticed that his gloves were in just as bad condition as his cloak was. Whatever that strange energy that he'd caught was, it had scorch the thin hides as much as the fire had. And there were already noticeable cracks and tears forming in all the wrong places, they were as good as useless now. It was with a heavy heart that he tugged them off and threw them to the ground too. As he was doing that, a stray thought reached him.

If that strange energy could do this to his gloves, what had it done to Allie?

A strange noise in the air immediately put him on guard, causing him to silently drop to the ground and use the log as concealment. Knowing better than to peek out to see what the sound was, he strained his ears in an attempt to identify what it was before judging his next course of action. It sounded like something in the air, kinda like those large fish-eating birds in his jungle home. But it also sounded very different, strange flapping sounds in the strong, cold winds and a weird whistling sound.

"Look there! The beast went this way!" a loud voice cried out from the direction of the flying noise.

Due to his long seclusion from society, the words and the meanings behind them had long since left his memory. But even without that knowledge, he was still able to interpret them well enough, not that he really needed to. He knew that they'd be after them, but to find their trail already? This wasn't good!

Taking calming breaths, he silently reached into the leather pouch that was hanging at his side. What he withdrew was one of his newer hunting/grappling weapons. It was a pair of leather gauntlets, one of which that had a pair of large, sharpened claws protruding over the wrist. They were claws that he'd taken off the corpses of those thrice-damned feathered predators, creatures he loathed and loved equally. This new weapon had helped him inflict considerable wounds on his smaller prey, and for these people it would most definitely suffice as a killing tool.

He slid the gauntlets on over his forearms and tightened the straps with practiced ease before he withdrew one of his smaller tooth daggers that were hanging from his thigh. That done, he removed his bow and quiver from his back and laid them on the ground next to his spear, those weapons wouldn't be necessary for this kinda fight. Silent as a leaf and hidden like shadow in the darkness, he easily dashed off to the side and scaled a tree in preparation for his attack.

As he was doing all this, the pursuing wizards had collected around the spot of the one who had found the trail. If they hadn't spread themselves out upon entering the forest, it was very likely that they'd have lost the trail fairly quickly in the dense foliage. Yet it had taken little skill to allow the experienced handlers of giant, fire-breathing reptiles to notice and follow the freshly knocked over trees and deep, three-toed tracks that led ever deeper into the forest.

"Don, you and Richard head down there to see if—_GAHH!_" the man's sharp cry of pain was the only warning that the others got before a silhouette silently dropped from the trees behind them, lashing out at the two that were closest to it. In less than four seconds, four bodies fell to the earth below, three of them severely injured from stab or slash wounds across their torsos.

"Why, you filthy savage!" one of the seven remaining wizards cried in fright as they recoiled from the unexpected attack.

"_Expelliarmus!_" one of the faster-recovering handlers cried out, attacking the long-haired teenager who had just now trying to regain his footing.

Rather than dodge the light, the scarred teen raised his left arm and caught the red light on the clawed leather gauntlet he now wore, knocking the spell bouncing off to the side. As he spun around to face them, his other arm shot up and launched something into the air with surprisingly high speed and accuracy.

It was more of a reflex than actual thought that had the wizards to throw up a quick Protego charm to protect them. But the thrown object wasn't deflected or halted in the least; it passed right through the blue shroud of magic as though it wasn't even there and impacted heavily into the gut of the wizard it was aimed at.

As the injured man cried out in agony and hurriedly attempted to remove the implement from his body, the others were already reacting to the threat, circling the boy and ducking behind trees. But the boy didn't remain in his position for more than a split second before dashing off into the forest, forcing five of the wizards to follow him with the sixth staying behind to help the four injured.

"_Reducto!_" one of the handlers yelled as he flew ahead the boy. The spell blasted apart the trunk of a tall tree, sending it toppling down in front of the little savage. But rather than try to run around the obstacle, the boy easily bounded up and flipped over it, continuing on his sprint.

"Jeez, doesn't this kid ever run out of breath?" one of them demanded aloud in annoyance.

Instead of answering, the same wizard who'd cast the Reducto tried again. This time he misjudged the angle of the spell, causing the tree ahead of the boy to fall slowly towards him than in front of him. For a moment, the falling tree's canopy hid the teenager from view as the wizards were forced to veer to the sides to avoid it.

After only a few seconds, the boy reappeared, running along the falling tree's trunk before he took a tremendous leap towards the closest wizard. The boy's heavily scarred face and a blur of light brown leather were the last things the man saw before his world exploded into a red spray and indefinable pain.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

It was with an almost detached sense of awareness that he silently entered the room and watched the proceedings of the gathered individuals. Professor Dumbledore sat in his customary chair at the head of the table in the staff room, watching and listening to the bickering and arguing of the other people in the room. A couple of the Hogwarts professors were also gathered in the room to watch the proceedings and to interject into a conversation to ask a question or make a statement.

Karkaroff stood off to one side, his face was constantly shifting from a smug grin to a cold glare at almost random intervals. Crouch and the newly-awakened Bagman were in a rather heated argument with the towering form of Madam Maxime, who was attempting to use her extreme size and bulk to intimidate the men into seeing her point of view or answering her questions. And, in her agitated state, the giant of a woman was constantly shifting back into her native tongue, often in mid-sentence. Though not understanding the language, Charlie was almost willing to bet that a fair portion of what she was saying in French were less than flattering cusswords and insults.

He had only been standing in his position unnoticed by the professors and ministry officials for at least five minutes, but he could already see that things were likely not going to go anywhere unless something was done to stop the arguing.

"Then why did they want the eggs?" Maxime had finally exclaimed heatedly, the argument clearly not going as she wanted. "Why would they want to steal that dragon's nest in front of so many wizards and witches?"

"Yes, I'd like to know that as well," Karkaroff quietly agreed, grimacing slightly as though he had a bad taste in his mouth from the simple act of doing so. "It makes little sense as to why a boy and a dinosaur would wish to steal a nest of dragon eggs."

This question seemed to bring the arguing parties up short. None of them could truly understand the reasons, let alone offer an answer.

"Perhaps the beast's stupidity rubbed off on the boy," Professor Snape muttered in a less than quiet voice, though his statement was met by several nods of reluctant agreement and even a few grins.

"You're wrong," a soft voice said unexpectedly. It wasn't until various heads turned in his direction that Charlie realized it was he who had spoken.

"Would care to explain, Mr. Weasley?" Dumbledore asked, his interest clearly visible in how he sat up in his chair ever so slightly.

"Who are you?" Karkaroff demanded, glaring at the young man who'd dared intruded on their meeting.

"Charlie Weasley, one of the dragon handlers," he answered quickly.

"And why are you here, Mr. Weasley?" Mr. Crouch asked in a less than friendly tone. "This meeting is for the Headmasters and Tournament officials. If you've come to—"

"I came in regards to the Horntail," Charlie interrupted before Mr. Crouch could get a full load of wind in his sails. "The wounds she received are very serious; a crushed wing and her jugular vein was punctured. She had been bleeding to death before we managed to halt the blood flow. It will take time for these wounds to heal, so she won't be able to participate in any more Tasks like the Short-Snout and Welsh Green, if you decide to redo the Tasks over. We wanted to know what we should do with her, so I came to ask."

That answer seemed to mollify Mr. Crouch. With the formalities out of the way, Dumbledore spoke up again. "Would you kindly explain your reasons behind your earlier statement, Mr. Weasley?"

"Dinosaurs, especially the predators of the later portions of the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods, have been found to be rather intelligent creatures," Charlie said, glancing at his old Headmaster.

There was a moment of silence that hung heavily in the air over the occupants of the room as they stared at the red-haired young man, some without even trying to hide their disbelief of his statement. Nearly all of them had grown up with the belief that dinosaurs were among the dumbest creatures to have ever walked the planet, even dumber than trolls which were the stupidest of all modern hominoid creatures. So it was to hear someone say that some of them could've actually been smarter than a man struck them as being on the verge of insanity. Alas, it was a very uncomfortable feeling for Charlie, whose face was slowly starting to flush from embarrassment.

"And how would you know that?" Snape asked snidely, voicing the question that was on the minds of all the others in the room.

"Studying prehistoric creatures and their ecosystems is an old hobby of mine, Professor," Charlie answered, glaring slightly at the Potions Master's mocking tone. "And Muggles have been doing some _very_ extensive research of their own into the prehistoric world."

"And Muggles are fools," Karkaroff muttered quietly.

"We're getting off subject!" Madam Maxime exclaimed. "Who cares whether the creature is smart or not! It has taken my Champion's item and we have yet to decide how to deal with the issue! Without her egg, Ms. Delacour will be unable to proceed to the next Task and the Goblet may choose to punish her for it."

"Indeed," Dumbledore agreed, turning to face Madam Maxime. "If you would allow it, I'm sure that Mr. Diggory would be willing to share his clue with Ms. Delacour."

"No, he cannot!" Karkaroff, Crouch, and surprisingly Bagman all declared almost simultaneously. After a moment of looking at each other in surprise, Crouch continued, "The Tournament Task rules forbade the sharing of information with the other Champions. Those eggs hold clues that are for their respective Champions and because of the nature of the task, which is to measure how clever each Champion is. There can be no sharing of information." This information caused almost everyone in the room who didn't know the rules to do a double-take in surprise, even Karkaroff and Bagman.

"Ms. Delacour was correct in chasing after the dinosaur," Crouch finished with a note of finality in his voice. "She must acquire the egg on her own."

"But remember what happened when the handlers tried to stop that thing," Bagman said uncertainly and almost sounding concerned for the girl.

"It was an Allosaurus," Charlie spoke up from the side, earning a small nod from the former Quidditch player.

"If that creature could ignore ten Stunners, which would've easily dropped any other creature we know of, how can one girl—" catching the glare that Madam Maxime was sending him, Bagman quickly amended his statement. "—no matter how talented she may be, possibly be able to fight it? Let alone steal the egg back? It seems only fair to me that we send some people along to help and protect her as is needed."

"I say we send Weasley here," Snape said, a sneer creeping up one side of his face as he glanced over at Charlie's surprised expression. In a clearly mocking tone, he continued, "Don't look so surprised, Mr. Weasley. _Clearly_, you know far more than any of _us_ about that creature. So we should only send someone who's the _most qualified_."

"I agree with Professor Snape," Dumbledore seconded, surprising Charlie and several of the others. It had been clear that Snape had made his suggestion out of ridicule, and not seriousness. "As a dragon handler, Mr. Weasley has extensive knowledge on how to understand and predict such a creature's habits and thought processes, as well as tracking such animals. He is also been among the most talented in the Care of Magical Creatures in recent years. He'd make for an excellent escort for young Ms. Delacour." Seeing a general nod of agreement and curiosity sweeping through the crowd, Dumbledore turned and asked, "What say you, Mr. Weasley?"

If he hadn't known any better, Charlie would've sworn that the Headmaster's eyes were twinkling in amusement as he watched. For his own part, Charlie was just shocked and awed almost beyond comprehension. The Headmaster was offering him a chance at his childhood dream! To pursue and observe a living, breathing dinosaur while protecting a little girl in her quest to find an egg.

"It would be an honor, Headmaster," he found himself answering with only a second's worth of considering.

"I must object, Dumbledore!" Madam Maxime interrupted. "Sending help to Ms. Delacour is fine, but to only send one dragon handler against that beast? It feels like your trying to dismiss my Champion of playing fair."

Charlie had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from pointing out that she had already helped her champion cheat in the Tournament. Granted, he was pretty sure it was Hagrid's doing that she had found out about the dragons in the first place, but the point remained that she'd most likely told her student right afterwards.

"I concur," Bagman said unexpectedly. "All the Tournament Tasks were meant to carried out in full view of the audience and ourselves. By sending Ms. Delacour only one man for help, we have no idea of what entirely will happen when she finds that dinosaur. It seems prudent to me that one of us should accompany Mr. Weasley and Ms. Delacour in their quest. Then, upon our return, we will be able to accurately judge just how well she had done in regards to the others. In fact, I would be more than willing to offer my services—"

"_Absolutely not!_" Mr. Crouch interrupted. "We judges cannot accompany Ms. Delacour, for that would invite the possibility of favoritism, which is against the rules. Also, Mr. Bagman, do not forget that you have _pressing_ _matters_ to attend to in your _job_."

It was at this point that a revelation came to the forefront of Charlie's mind. He knew just who to send along with them! "If I may, I believe I may have a person in mind."

"Who?" Mr. Crouch questioned, turning a fierce gaze on Charlie.

"My brother, Bill," Charlie said. "He's an experienced Gringotts cursebreaker. He was the Head Boy in his year, scored very high in all of his classes, and he has a lot of experience in dealing with rare or unknown forms of magic, harsh environments, and has had to deal with a variety of savage creatures that've guarded the tombs he used to excavate."

There was a look of surprise that crossed Madam Maxime's face as she digested that information. Then, with only a few moments of consideration, she quickly offered up her agreement to include Bill, along with several others.

However, Karkaroff wasn't so quick. "Bill Weasley? You mean that boy who caused that property scandal over stolen artifacts with the Egyptian Ministry a few months ago?"

Charlie winced slightly at the reminder. Though he didn't know all the details, he couldn't help but feel slightly embarrassed at the reminder of what his brother had caused back in January and February. It hadn't helped to have some of his fellow, less than friendly, coworkers start belittling his brother (and himself by extension) either.

"Yes, sir," he acknowledged, nodding reluctantly. "But that doesn't change my recommendation. In fact, it's because of that that I suggested him. Gringotts called him back here to England, so he could be here within only ten minutes if he agrees." Which he would, Charlie knew. Bill _hated_ desk jobs, especially after his time in the field.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

It was dark and cold in the forest that she was stumbling through. Exposed tree roots whose sole purpose in existence was to trip the next unfortunate passerby were perfectly hidden beneath a thick layer of foliage and moldy leaves. Her chest was heaving uncontrollably from her long, blind run into the forest after the thief and his pet, and she shivering against the cold winds that were sweeping through the trees and expertly penetrating her light clothing. Dusk was quickly and silently closing in on her, plunging the dark forest into ever-deepening hues of blacks, grays, and browns. And her stomach was starting to grumble in complaint; in her anxiety of the upcoming Task, she had neglected to eat an entire full meal beforehand, so she was quite hungry as well.

Needless to say, Fleur was having the worst day of her life.

But arguably worst of all, she had seen not a hide or hair of the boy and his dinosaur since they'd vanished into the dark confines of the forest. At first, it had been quite easy. The large, three-toed grooves in the dirt would've been impossible to miss, even for a blind man. But then, the deeper in she followed them, the harder and harder it became to follow the trail. It wasn't so much that the footprints disappeared, it was that the dinosaur seemed to prefer running along fallen trees, logs, and rocks than on the ground. This left Fleur having a much more difficult time of following the creature until almost an hour and a half ago, she'd lost the trail completely.

Now she was trudging through the darkness of an unknown and dangerous forest with nothing but the clothes on her back and the wand in her hand, panting heavily and dearly wishing for a hot both, meal, and time to relax from her exhaustion. But she couldn't do any of that, not until she got her egg!

"Accursed…little…scar…faced…brat," she growled darkly to herself between breaths. Absentmindedly she rubbed his abdomen when it started to give another groan of complaint.

Up ahead, she could faintly hear the gurgling of a creek. The sound of running water quickly reminded her of the dryness that was consuming her mouth and her strong thirst that had been built up after running and sweating so much earlier. Stumbling gracelessly through the darkness towards the stream, Fleur smiled slightly in relief when she finally came upon the life-giving liquid that was shimmering faintly in the moonlight that had managed to creep through the forest canopy. Drawing her wand, she easily transfigured a nearby rock into a simple goblet. She dipped it into the stream and took several long drinks to quench her thirst. Honestly, at that moment, simple water had never tasted so good in all her life.

As she was sighing quietly in relief, Fleur noticed a slight movement out of the corner of her eye. Crouching low and hiding slightly behind a tree, she squinted through the darkness to better see what had attracted her attention. A dark shape had detached itself from the forest with not even a faint rustle of the foliage on the ground and was now hunching down next to the creek just fifty meters downstream.

Moving her wand towards her eyes, she lightly tapped her face as she whispered, "In Obscurum Animadverto." In an instant, her eye cleared of the darkness surrounding her and she was able to see perfectly.

It was the dinosaur brat! He was crouching down next to the stream, washing his hands, clothes, and a number of those strange ornaments he wore on his clothing of what seemed like…fresh blood. In fact, now that she looked closer, there were flecks and trails of blood dripping down his face that he didn't seem to notice. Obviously, that wasn't _his_ blood he was cleaning off.

What should she do now? She finally found the damn brat, but it was the dinosaur that had taken the egg. She could force herself upon him, make him take her to where the accursed reptile had run off to and then get her egg back. However, as she watched him not absentmindedly scrub the blood from his face, she decided against that course of action. Maybe she should follow him? It shouldn't be that hard to now that he likely thought he was safe and in the clear, right?

As she continued to watch, something peculiar happened right before her eyes. Another form detached itself from the forest surrounding them and this one was easily recognizable to her. A dark-furred wolf, probably a lone wolf since there didn't seem to be a pack anywhere. The wolf quietly walked up to the stream and dipped down to take a few licks, not seeming to notice the human savage that was crouching down right next to it. The scarred boy had watched the animal for a few seconds before he too turned back to the stream and cupped some water into his hands to drink as well.

There was something oddly symbolic about the picture that she was seeing before her. Like…the boy was just part of the surrounding forest. Like the wolf, a creature that belonged in the forest. The wolf had known this and that was why it didn't seem intimidated by the boy's presence.

A small cramp in her leg started to make itself known to Fleur as she remained in her hidden position. As she was adjusting her position to stretch the complaining muscle, a small branch under her heel cracked, sending a deafening snap ringing through the otherwise quiet forest scene.

In a flash, the boy and the wolf were up and looking around. Despite that she was hiding behind a tree and in the cover of darkness, both of them seemed to notice her presence right away now that they were actively searching for her. The wolf turned and disappeared back the way it came while the boy quickly leapt over the stream and ran into the forest ahead of him, quickly disappearing as well.

Not about to lose her prey now that she'd found him; Fleur was once again racing after the boy, kicking up a lot of noise as she hurried after him. She would follow him to the ends of the earth and back if she had to. He couldn't escape from her forever!

* * *

(**Author's Note**) Sorry this one's taken so long to get out. Between extended work hours and just plain living, I was rather low on inspiration lately. Okay now, I believe I have only two things to say in this Author's Note.

The first thing is quite simple. I have recently commissioned an incredibly talented artist (hakumo of DeviantART) to draw me up a sketch of Harry. If any of you are interested in seeing it, just follow this link (it is also posted on my homepage). http / tellemicus deviantart com/art/Harry-Potter-in-Dino-Land-156237436 I think a few of you will like what you see.

The second thing is more of an answer to a rant I recieved from several people. I understand that you don't like it when I use scenes from movies or books or whatnot, like what I did in chapter 4. But that is how I write. I have done stuff like that in **_every single one_** of my big stories. I do it because a) it's my way of offering a tribute towards the movies and/or books that have helped inspire me to write the story/chapter, b) it's a lot of fun writing those scenes and putting my own twists into them, and c) it's trivia to you as the reader to figure out where I found those scenes. If you don't like it, well I'm certainly not forcing you to read my story(s). Am I?

In Obscurum Animadverto = In darkness I see (or something like that)


	7. Of Traps and Tunnels

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 7—Of Traps and Tunnels_

**25 November 1994  
3:42am, Friday**

Excluding the occasional creak and groan of a tree swaying in the cold winds, the rustle of the leaves, and the whistles of the wind, the forest was eerily quiet. Not a bird chirped, insect creaked, frog or toad croaked, nothing at all. The silence, as well as the lingering aura of danger and a subtle bloodlust that seemed to be imbedded in the very land itself, would've been enough to send most people running in fear.

But he ignored it with a practiced ease. While the near-total silence did indeed make him nervous, he had long since grown accustomed to such occasions in his jungle home. And with the entrance to the cave rested just ahead of him, he would now protect it to the best of his ability. It was long, tedious, and backbreaking work he was doing, but he'd do it.

He knew that killing more of them after that first attack would only invite them to come searching for him. After he'd realized that he was still being pursued by at least one more of those people back by the creek, he'd taken off immediately. They ran this world with a cruelty he could scarcely perceive anymore, which was another reason why he left that person unharmed.

While he didn't understand what they were doing at the time, he did know that they were a danger to Allie and his jungle. After all, what was going on with hundreds of people surrounding a giant predator that would normally eat them for snacks while only watching as one danced around it? Something isn't right there according to the natural order. That could only mean one thing: they were a threat to his home. So he wouldn't—no, _couldn't—_let them find it.

It hadn't been easy losing his latest pursuer, especially since the most reliable way was by moving through the trees. However, these trees were smaller, thinner, and _much_ weaker than what he'd grown accustomed to in the underground jungle. But he'd managed to finally outpace the person after about twenty minutes. And now he was at the entrance to the cave that led to his jungle.

It was different from what little he remembered it being like when he'd fallen into it years ago. The rotten tree that had once concealed the entrance had been torn to pieces with a very large hole dug out where the starving giant spiders had been once frantically trying to reach him years ago. But that wasn't the only difference to what he barely remembered of the site. Without a horde of spiders trying to devour him, he was able to look around and study the landscape of the area a bit more thoroughly.

The cave entrance was nestled up against a small rocky ridge, tall trees and dense shrubs stood along and atop the entire length of the ridge. The forestry masked the rocky cliff's presence quite adequately from the ground level, which was just another reason why he didn't see it the last time he'd been in the vicinity. The layout of the area had quickly given him a considerable number of ideas. Ideas that he was now exploiting to the best of his ability with the limited time he inevitably had left on his side.

He would make sure that should anyone follow him this far, they wouldn't be leaving the area alive.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**6:31am**

"Tell me again," Bill called out somewhat irritably from where he was crouched over the shaft of his broom, a pair of heavy bags of supplies hanging from his back. Why did _he_ have to be the one to carry the girl's bag? "Why you guys decided that confounding a Horntail hen and using a couple of eggs from an unknown species that you'd found in the Forbidden Forest as a part of the Tournament Task was a good idea?"

"It was either that or delay the Task long enough for a new hen to be delivered," Charlie called back from where he was flying point as he triple-checked the direction they were flying with the 'Point Me' spell. He too had a bag of supplies that Bill had procured for them shortly after accepting the offer. A surprising amount of what he had seen in those magically expanded bags were Muggle manufactured goods. "Plus, at the time, we didn't even suspect that they might've been something other than a dragon's eggs."

"At least tell me that you remember where you first found them," Bill said, quite exasperated at his brother. "If my guess is right, those two have already returned home and we'll never find them now. Maybe we could follow the trail back to them from the nest's original location."

"You know that the kid probably tried to cover their trail right?" Charlie pointed out. Before his brother could respond, he pulled to a quick halt as his wand started spinning on the palm of his hand. Diving into the forest, he yelled, "Found her!"

Rolling his eyes at his brother's reckless dive, Bill followed at a more sedate pace, carefully avoiding the tree branches and saving himself from being scratched up. Below him, the forest floor came into view and he spotted his brother and the girl. In his time overseas, Bill had seen a respectable number of Veela and half-breeds and they truly lived up to their reputations of being very beautiful. But if he were honest with himself, Bill would easily admit that the girl in front of him outshone those he'd already seen by a wide margin…on one of her good days perhaps.

The girl, Fleur Delacour if he remembered right, was clearly worse for wear. Her clothes were ripped in various places, mostly along her sleeves and pant legs, leaves and small twigs were caught in her long blonde hair, her skin (particularly her face) was adorned with red, slightly bleeding scratches, she was heaving heavily for a breath, and her eyes were heavily lidded making it clear she'd been up all night running blindly in the forest.

"_Who are you?_" she demanded in French, relief, irritation, and exhaustion apparent in her voice.

"_We are Charlie_," Bill answered in French as he indicated his brother and then himself, "_and Bill Weasley. We were instructed by the Headmasters to be your escort and aid you as the situation calls for._"

Fleur was caught between glaring and staring at him with more interest than she probably should have. She didn't have the time for such thoughts: she had an egg to recover! But, in the back of her mind, she quietly acknowledged that she liked what she was seeing.

"_I do not want or need any help_," Fleur stated, her pride forcing her to declare her opinions on the matter. "_So I will thank you to return back to them and await my arrival with the egg_."

"_With all due respect_," Bill said as he removed the bags from his shoulders. "_We are now magically bound to the Goblet of Fire due to our having accepted the terms of escorting you throughout the remainder of this Task. We can no more leave your side than you can give up the egg._" Seeing the part-Veela about to object again, he held up a hand and said, "_If nothing else, would you like a quick shower and a small breakfast before we get underway again?_"

That was an offer that Fleur just could _not_ decline.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

He was heaving with all his might. Just a little more and it'd be all set. More, more, more! His muscles were screaming in protest, but he refused to let up to rest. If he gave up now, he wouldn't have the strength or endurance to make another attempt at this for another two hours of rest. He could do it; he knew he could because he'd moved logs much heavier than this over much further distances before. Of course, he'd also had a lot of help from Allie and none of those times included moving a log almost directly straight up a cliff before, with the log's full weight bearing down on him without mercy.

His foot slipped! Bracing himself with his good foot, he fought to stand in place. It took all his mustered strength to not give into gravity. Slowly, painstakingly slowly, his balance returned. Lifting his dangling foot, he placed it back on the cliff in a more secure foothold.

He was almost done. Just a bit more! He could feel his heart racing, blood and adrenaline rushing through his veins, the beat of his heart like thunder in his ears. He could do this! Just…a…little…_more!_

There! The log slid into a small crevice in the cliff face, supported by an array of branches and vines that he'd earlier constructed. With the way it was now, the slightest disturbance of the foundations would send the entire structure tumbling down the cliff and hopefully crush all beneath it before they could react in time.

Sighing heavily as he turned and collapsed against the cliff face, he rested for a few moments. It was times like this that he actually appreciated the cold and harsh wind, it helped cool him down and relax his screaming muscles. After catching his breath, he carefully slid down the cliff and dropped just inside the cave opening.

Turning for one last glance at his multiple trap layouts, he nodded in quick approval of the hasty set up. It was the best he could do with only a few hours to work with. Then he raced into the cave and jumped over the edge. He quickly crossed his arms over his chest, took a deep breath, and dropped feet first into the cold water of the underground river a short distance below. Rather than fight against it, he let the powerful current pull him downstream towards the haven of his jungle.

He was _finally_ going home!

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**8:06am**

"Why does this remind me of the Egyptian tombs?" Bill asked from where they floated on the edge of the clearing. In front of them lay an innocent cave of respectably sized opening that dipped into the ground, next to a high cliff. The dense forest and trees obscured the cliff top, making it very difficult to see beyond where the canopy started, even in broad daylight. "So what do you think, Miss Delacour?"

After giving Fleur a spare broom to fly on, the trio had backtracked to where Charlie had first found the eggs. From there Fleur had taken over as the 'team leader' and lead tracker, with only a little bit of help from Charlie and Bill whenever they noticed that they were starting to stray off the faint trail. It was also thanks to using the brooms that they'd avoided getting caught in a surprise Acromantula attack, a lumbering forest troll, and a centaur patrol.

When they had arrived upon the site, Bill's environment awareness had started tingling again. Some kind of magic had been used here, and recently. There was a peculiar smell in the air, like freshly churned dirt and dew. There was a conspicuous amount of mud on the ground below, which had three trails of tracks in. Two of the tracks were large, three-toed, and clearly the dinosaur's, leading to and from the cave, with the third trail being a pair of human footprints which were obviously the dinosaur kid's.

His awareness and a gut feeling were telling him that this was just _too_ simple. There was danger close by, but he didn't know where.

"Something's wrong," Fleur muttered quietly after having looked around the small clearing. "But I don't know what or where."

Setting down on the ground next to a tree carefully, Charlie slid off his broom and bent down. Brushing away some leaves, he picked up a small rock and tossed it into the small clearing. In the quiet of the forest, the soft noise of it bouncing off the leaves, dropping out of sight, and clattering off of something wooden was quite easily heard.

"_Deprimo!_" Fleur said, thrusting her wand forward. In a powerful gust of wind, the mass of leaves covering the ground was swept away and revealed a large, deep hole that had many sharpened stakes lining the bottom. The pit was easily two meters deep and about six meters long, ending a couple of meters in front of the cave entrance.

"Nice bloke," Charlie muttered under his breath. If that was the kind of welcome he gave all uninvited guests, he didn't even want to think about what the kid would do if he actually caught them.

"This kid is much more dangerous than I thought," Bill said, more to himself than the others. "There was no netting or anything. It was _magic_ holding those leaves up. Why didn't you tell me he could do this?"

"Because I didn't know!" Charlie barked back as he mounted his broom again.

"Let's go," Fleur cut in sharply, already floating across the spiked pit with her wand still at the ready, Bill and Charlie also drawing their wands as they followed.

As she landed lightly on the ground, there came an audible snap from beneath her feet as she sunk several inches into the ground. While they automatically looked down at the source of the sound, a loud crashing sound erupted from the rock cliff above Fleur. Caught flatfooted and disoriented, Fleur only had enough time to look up in surprise and fear to see a large tree trunk come tumbling down towards her—

"_Confringo!_"

—and exploded violently a mere meter above her, showering her sawdust and woodchips as the two bisected portions of the log came to a crashing halt in the pit behind her. Shaking herself of the wood fragments, Fleur turned and stared gratefully at Monsieur William Weasley as he lowered his wand.

"You okay?" he asked, waving his wand and cleaning her of the wood. Seeing her hesitant nod, he glanced over at his brother and said, "I think we should expect more such surprises from the kid from here on."

"Yeah," Charlie nodded, crouching down to examine the trigger under Fleur's feet. "I'd say that it's pretty clear he doesn't want anyone following him."

Stepping aside, Fleur also glanced at what she'd stepped on. It looked like some kind of hunting entrapment that muggles used to use centuries ago. It had a basic box shape that was tied together by a series of thin vines and hair. It seemed to have been supporting a long vine that ran through the center of it, which was now snapped in two from where Fleur had stepped on it.

"Clever kid," Bill said quietly as he picked up a section of the broken trap's trigger. "There was no magic with this one… He must've figured that wizards would be after him, so he set the pit to be a decoy trap for the log he set up. Very clever."

Growing impatient, Fleur purposely moved into the cave and held up her wand, "_Lumos!_"

Entering the cave, the trio was assaulted by an overwhelming smell of mud and dew. With their wands lighting the way, they easily spotted the tracks of their prey in the dirt. As they drew closer to a cliff, they heard the rushing of water and came to an immediate halt as they spotted the underground river. The river was at the bottom of a steep drop, almost thirty meters straight down, and was moving at speeds that were roughly equivalent to the worst whitewater rapids. There was small ledge that ran along both edges of the carved out water channel. But the set of human tracks ended at the top of the ledge over the river.

"That kid is either quite crazy or very brave if he did what I think he did," Charlie muttered, unease in his voice as he stared down at the rushing water.

"Where do we go from here, Miss Delacour?" Bill asked, keeping his opinions to himself.

Rather than answer verbally, Fleur once again her broom and swooped down into the river canyon, flying downstream with the brothers following her shortly afterwards. It was slow going because their wands could only light the way a certain distance ahead of them and there were many turns and twists in the river tunnel, flying ever deeper in the earth.

After about twenty minutes of following the winding river, they rounded the corner of yet another sharp turn and all three of them came to an immediate halt at the sight before them. Channeling more power to their spells, the lights of their wands brightened enough to light up the entire chamber they'd entered. What lie before them was the river that continued flowing its course forward…in _six_ different directions.

"Well, this complicates things," Charlie muttered bleakly, his quiet voice barely heard over the rush of the water.

Scowling, Fleur looked around the chamber for possible clues to which direction her prey had gone. Looking up, she spotted the ledges from earlier was still. Was it possible that the duo had taken one of them when they'd left these underground tunnels? Floating up to the ledge, she scanned the pathway carefully. There was much less mud and sand along the rocky paths, making it very difficult to see any possible footprints.

Meanwhile Bill and Charlie had drifted down to examine the river junctions. If the kid and his beast had jumped into the water, then it would seem more than likely that they'd be swept along with the strongest current. From that perspective, it seemed that the center two rivers had the most powerful currents while the others were more branch-offs.

"I found something!" Fleur called from where she was floating a short ways upriver. Quickly joining her, Bill and Charlie too spotted what she'd found. It was a series of twigs and branches that were littered a portion of the left ledge. "This must've been part of the nest that the dinosaur took."

"I see," Bill said, now floating along the same ledge. "We can use this, which means it must've taken the left stream."

With new determination, the trio drifted cautiously down the much narrower tunnel, forcing them to fly in a single file. The tunnel ceiling also rapidly dropped so much that they were skimming along the water's surface.

"Miss Delacour," Bill called from where he was floating up at the rear. "How were you planning on getting the egg from the dinosaur? I understand that it was quite…immune to most of the spells that were used on it."

"I'll figure that out when I find it!" Fleur answered sharply before she suddenly pulled to a halt, surprising the brothers behind her.

"What is it?" Bill asked, trying to look over Charlie and Fleur's shoulders.

"What's that?" Fleur asked suspiciously, anxiety thick in her voice as she dimmed the _Lumos_ of her wand.

Without the light of her wand lighting up the tunnel, the brothers were easily able to see what had caught her attention. It was a strange golden-white glow that was barely visible around the corner of the stream up ahead.

"I'll find out," Charlie prompted, getting off his broom and dropping in the cold water below them. To their surprise, the water only came up to his waist. Without more than moment's hesitation, he shuffled past Fleur and made his way carefully downstream.

Fleur and Bill watched and waited anxiously as the redhead steadily approached the corner where the light was emitting from. Charlie peeked around the corner and stared at the sight before him. Turning, he waved them towards him as he moved more fully around the corner and into the light. Rounding the corner themselves, Bill and Fleur were assaulted by surprisingly bright light. After a moment of adjustment, they were able to see that it was sunlight which was coming from what looked like a cave exit. They were finally leaving the cave tunnels!

Rushing forward, they came up alongside Charlie who had just reached the cave mouth. As their eyes slowly and painfully adjusted to the harsh sunlight, all of them froze at the new sight they spotted.

"I think our job just got a _lot_ more complicated, Bill," Charlie muttered from where he was still standing in the coldwater. Bill could only murmur in agreement as he stared in wonderment.

They were at the mouth of a small cave that was located upon a rocky ledge that was at least several dozen meters above the river below. The small river formed a waterfall as it spilled over one section of the ledge. In front of them was what could only have been an _enormous_ underground cavern, yet there seemed to be no cave ceiling, appearing as though it were a normal sky above them. And nestled in the cavern before them was a bright, lush jungle with incredibly large trees towered above them, with trumpeting and howling calls of creatures they couldn't even fathom echoing through the trees and off the cavern walls.

"_**WHAT IS THIS?**_" Fleur screamed in disbelief and frustration.

* * *

(**Author's Note**) And the World Beneath has now been finally and officially 'discovered' by our trio of explorers. But what pray-tell will happen next? And sorry about the long wait. My excuse is real life is a bitch, and I just got slapped in the face _hard _by her. As it stands, I have no idea when my next update will be, so don't hold your breath for it being any time soon.

Funny thing, when I originally imagined this part, I wanted to add in a much more lengthy time in the underground tunnel system, featuring a few high-speed turns and dives on a mining track. But then i decided that that was too lengthy and deviated too much from the primary storyline. Besides I can always bring that idea back for later, can't I?


	8. Into a New World

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 8—Into a New World_

**25 November 1994  
Friday, 8:42am  
Jungle cavern**

Leaping from one tree limb, he reached out and grabbed a passing branch above him. The branch was relatively small and thin, but more than strong enough to hold his sudden weight for the few moments it took for him to swing his legs forward and release it, using the new momentum to propel himself further onwards to the next tree branch ahead of him. Landing lightly on the branch, he took a brief second to balance himself and negate the momentum he'd just gained before turning and running down the length of the branch. The farther out he ran, the deeper the branch sagged downward. As he was nearing the branch's limit, he begin bouncing his weight before jumping up, using the branch's natural upwards jerk to further launch himself high into the air.

Spreading his arms as the strong winds pulled at his long, matted black hair, a smile crossed his face. This was what he loved most about his jungle home, flinging himself out of trees or off cliffs from unbelievable heights and falling through the air, letting the winds pull at his body as he plummeted. This exercise of fake-flight gave him a sense of satisfaction and exhilaration that was as primal as it was enjoyable.

However, like all times before, he pulled himself out of his moment of elation and prepared for the landing below. After falling from the canopy high above him, he was very quickly nearing the forest floor below. Reaching out, he snagged a nearby dangling vine. Ignoring the minor burn that the vine gave his toughened hands, he held on tightly as his fall was broken and turned into a semi-controlled swing. After a split second of this swinging, he released the vine and dropped the rest of the way to the ground, rolling lightly through the dirt to further slow his momentum. Getting his feet back under him, he was up and running along as though his fall hadn't even occurred.

Using his nose as best he could, he quietly traversed through the jungle foliage. With the light browns, reds, and greens of his animal hide clothing, he was little more than a brief disturbance in the ferns and small grasses around him. His bare feet treaded lightly across the ground as he continued his relatively slow run, leaving barely any tracks behind for passing predators to follow. Whenever possible, he ran atop any exposed, jutting rocks or fallen trees to further hide his tracks. The only thing he had going against him was the lingering stink of smoke from when he'd been blasted by fire earlier. His swim down the underground river had helped wash most of the stink away, but the water was far too cold for him to desire taking a more thorough bath. Now, however, that problem would be soon remedied because he could smell that he was quickly approaching a river.

And sure enough, he caught the sound of gurgling water up ahead. Slowing his run, he quietly slid to a halt and crouched down in a large mass of ferns. Surveying the small river carefully, he saw no animals nearby and there didn't seem to be any predators hiding in the bushes or within the water itself, though he wasn't sure with that one. Taking a breath and preparing to run at the first sign of danger, he crept out of the ferns and removed his bow and large quiver of arrows, his leather pouch, and spear to set them on the bank. Without a moment of hesitation, he waded quietly out into the slightly deeper water and quickly submerged himself in the pleasantly warm liquid. This was one of the many things he loved about the jungle; all the rivers and lakes it contained (excluding the rivers that flowed in from the world above) maintained a steady and comfortable temperature all year round.

Rising as quietly as he could, he quickly scrubbed his body and clothing, trying to remove as much of the smoky scent as he could. Though, to his sensitive nose, it didn't seem to be working all that well. The water seemed to dampen its effects, but it still clung to him, making him feel even dirtier than that one time he'd gotten stuck in a mud pit three rainy seasons ago. Sighing heavily in resignation, he climbed out of the river and shook himself of the excess water. Maybe the scent would dissipate in time…? It'd better, or he could be in real trouble later.

As he was hefting up his gear and replacing it back upon himself, a familiar call sounded from the trees behind him. Without turning to look, he dashed off downriver and towards the nearest tree he deemed worthy. Quickly scaling the giant conifer with the ease of much experience, he turned and looked down at the approaching small herd of ten duck-billed animals.

Eyeing the duck-bills warily, he slowed his breathing and quietly watched the jungle around the dining animals. With a group this small, hunters were sure to be nearby, wanting to capitalize on the easy meal. Sure enough, thanks to his quick climb and searching eyes, he spotted the slowly stalking hunters. Good thing he'd made the climb when he did, otherwise he might've run right into their midst. It was a pack of those damned feathered predators and a lot of them, at least fifteen that he could see.

While fighting that many would've been very difficult on the best of days, he wasn't in the mood to get into a needless brawl. He needed to find Allie and quickly. If he knew her, she was getting quite hungry by this point would likely do something foolish. And that wasn't even taking into account her newly-recovered nest that would need protecting.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**9:01am**

"This place is beautiful," Charlie uttered quietly, his eyes positively shining as he took in the scenery before them.

The three adventurers were resting on the waterfall ledge that they'd found themselves on when they emerged from the river tunnel. After they'd recovered from their shock at the discovery they'd accidentally come across, Fleur had immediately insisted they take flight and begin searching for the boy and his dinosaur. Bill and Charlie had quickly decided to band together and veto the Veela's decision. To go charging headfirst into an unknown like what was before them would've been foolish and, above all else, dangerous since they had no idea what was lying in wait within those large trees.

As they sat there, contemplating their situation, all of them quickly noticed something peculiar. Even Charlie who was soaked by the cold waters of the river beside them, all three of them were beginning to sweat very heavily in the high humidity and temperature of the jungle. The humidity was so great that it felt as though they weren't standing in a cavern of untold reaches below the surface of the earth but in an actual tropical jungle down by the Equator. The air was filled with heavy, drifting mists that were so thick that it felt as though they were drinking the air instead of breathing. And there was a strange fragrance that hung in the air as well, teasing their senses of smell due to its strange odor, making it somewhat difficult for the three of them to breathe properly. Fleur, who had quickly cast the Bubble-Head Charm to breathe fresh oxygen, was quite disgruntled to realize that not even that charm could protect her from the humidity and the strange odor.

In response to these peculiar climate changes, they had quickly shed whatever excess clothing they didn't need and were forced to take slow, deep breaths just to get the proper amount of oxygen into their lungs. Charlie and Bill were now clad in a matching pairs of Gryffindor red and yellow T-shirts and brown cargo shorts. Fleur had shed her torn, blue Beauxbatons robes and was now wearing a simple pink T-shirt and beige shorts with her blonde hair pulled back into a high ponytail, clothing that she'd donned while hiding in the darkness of the river cavern they'd recently exited for privacy.

Now Fleur was sitting against a small boulder, futilely trying to fight off her exhaustion as her lack of sleep seemed to be quickly catching up to her. Her constantly nodding head and rubbing her heavy eyelids earned her quite a few concerned yet amused glances from the brothers. But while Charlie was easily able to shift his attention back to the jungle before them, Bill was focusing more on inventorying their supplies.

Turning his attention back to a more immediate question, Charlie looked around for ways the Allosaurus could've gotten down without dropping or crushing the eggs. The small waterfall ledge they were currently perched on jutted out of a very large and steep canyon wall. To the left he could see a series of boulders and other ledges that the dinosaur could've used as stepping stones and footholds to get down. However the distance between some of those were large enough that he wasn't sure if the creature could've managed to jump the distance while carrying the nest or not. There was one other possible route that the dinosaur could've taken. It could've allowed the small stream to pull it over the edge and drop to the ground below (some fifteen meters straight down) into the small pond underneath. However, it was unlikely since there was a good chance that the eggs could've been badly jostled, even broken.

"This isn't going to be enough," Bill muttered quietly, gaining Charlie's attention.

Looking over, Charlie saw that his brother had filled most of the free space on the ledge with their gear. On one side there were three small tents, all their camping supplies, and personal hygiene items. Next to those were a few changes of generic clothing for the three of them, including the classic black wizard robes, a few Muggle shirts and pants, three pairs of hats, and three pairs of extra dragonhide boots. And finally, there were three large open Muggle coolers that each held different kinds of foods within, various frozen meats, fruits and vegetables, bread, several cases of bottled water, a few Butterbeers, pumpkin juice, and maybe even Firewhiskey. There was a small pile of weapons which included two heavily-charmed swords and three round metal shields, for use in emergencies. And of course there were the three Cleansweeps they were riding earlier.

"I don't know," Charlie said, eyeing his brother curiously. "It looks you almost overdid to me."

Shaking his head, Bill looked up and said, "I packed enough food and drink for three days. It'll last longer if we eat conservatively and find more food elsewhere, but we have no idea what's in there; what's poisonous and what isn't. Plus, I had packed under the assumption that we'd only be fighting against _one_ dinosaur, not discovering a completely new world right beneath our feet! Aside from our wands and those swords, we don't have any weapons that could possibly bring down anything of the…larger or faster variety that could be in here." Glancing over at Fleur as she finally succumbed and drifted off asleep, he continued, "And then there's the fact that we don't even know where to start looking in this place. Let alone how we'll fight against the dinosaur and the kid if we _do_ find them."

"I've been thinking about that," Charlie admitted. "I may have a way for us to possibly beat the Allosaurus, or any dinosaur, if my hunch is right. Back in the stadium, when the others tried to stop them, they tried using the standard tactic of subduing the dinosaur with overwhelming magic. But the spells, mostly Stunners if I remember right, just bounced right off its hide as though they were just throwing pebbles."

"What've you got in mind?" Bill asked, although he was pretty sure he was starting to see where his brother was going.

"The spells used were focused spells, curses and jinxes," Charlie said quietly as a contemplative look crossed his face. "Spells meant to cause a specific reaction, yet they bounced off. That can only mean that it has an unbelievably high resistance to magic, right? What if we used an area effect spell instead, like Reducto? Attack the landscape, make the Allosaurus run and dodge, and then trap it? We don't have to kill it, remember."

Looking back out at the jungle, he continued, "And that's not even taking into account the kid. I'm pretty sure he was wearing some kind of hide, probably from a dinosaur he'd killed. He looked very fast and very strong, probably from always running for his life. It wouldn't be easy at all to hit him with a spell, assuming it didn't bounce off his clothes. The best we could do is to separate him from the Allosaurus and keep him pinned down for a little while…You know, I wonder if there're more humans down here, and if they've also tamed some dinosaurs."

Thinking over the ideas and suggestions, Bill couldn't help but nod in approval. As a particular thought occurred to him, Bill turned to face his brother with a slight grin, "You know, brother, you could've made an exceptional cursebreaker if you'd wanted."

Charlie laughed quietly before shaking his head. "My one and true love will always be giant, fire-breathing dragons." Pausing for a second, he glanced over at the jungle again before continuing, "But I have a feeling that I'll be adding a few new loves to that list very soon."

"That's assuming we manage to survive this," Bill muttered bleakly as he returned all their gear back into their bags, excluding the tents. Erecting one, he quietly levitated the sleeping Veela up and into the bed of the tent. Despite the fact that they were essentially wasting time, he knew that she'd thank him later when she awoke and wasn't feeling stiff and sore from sleeping on the boulder behind her.

"I guess we're waiting for Sleeping Beauty to awaken before we move on?" Charlie asked when Bill returned outside. He had his Cleansweep in hand and was eyeing the jungle with a passionate yearning Bill had rarely seen in his brother before.

"Yup," he nodded. "I take it you want to go exploring for a little bit?"

"Definitely," Charlie answered shortly, that longing in his eyes deepening.

Sighing, Bill sat down on a nearby boulder and said, "Don't be gone for more than an hour, or we'll assume you're dead. And frankly, I don't want to even think about what Mum'll do if _another_ of us dies."

At that statement, some of the longing fled Charlie's gaze as he glanced at his brother somberly. Nodding seriously, he mounted his broom and said, "I'll be back in a half hour." The next instant, he was gone, flying through the trees.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**11:56am**

Hooking his feet around a protruding limb, he allowed his high momentum to carry him into a complete spin under and around the tree limb. Upon completing the spin, he crouched down and viewed the small clearing with suspicion. The grasses were uprooted in places, but mostly just trampled down, with further damage inflicted in the part of the jungle where the stampede had disappeared into. There were large and small footprints mixed in and partially hidden in the grasses, but he was able to recognize the imprints as belonging to yet another group of those duckbills.

Studying the scene, he guessed that the stampede had been fairly recent, maybe an hour old. Lifting his face, he took a deep, slow sniff, searching for the scent of blood. Ah, there it was. There didn't seem to be a lot, which could only mean that there had been only one hunter. And that the hunter had likely caught one of the babies. And since he was now in the midst of his and Allie's hunting grounds, there could only be culprit responsible. With a small smile, he turned away and bounded through the jungle canopy towards where he suspected to find her.

Springing from tree to tree, vaulting over branches in his way, sliding down the lengths of thick ones, launching himself high into the air from swaying tree limbs, and swinging from one vine to another, he made very good time in his journey towards his home. In this portion of the jungle, he was truly the king of the canopy. He knew every tree, every branch, every vine, all footholds and hidden notches, secret paths on the ground and in the air, protruding roots, hideaway spaces, and even certain insect hives that should be avoided. This was his home.

Up ahead was a towering fruit tree, far more massive than any other tree that he'd ever seen before by at least five times. The closer he approached this tree in their territory, a landmark for him and Allie since it was located at the exact center, the more pronounced the scent of decaying corpses became. Though it had taken some time, he was finally able to just pass by the rotting skeletons and decomposing mounds of uneaten flesh without doing anything more than grimacing in disgust at the _foul_ stink. The fact that he was a great distance above them as he passed also helped him ignore the mess considerably.

Reaching a small, fast-flowing river at the base of the massive fruit tree, he slid to a halt atop a large branch and gazed down towards the ground. Unless his nose was lying to him, there was a fresh scent of blood mixed in with the rotting corpses somewhere nearby. Taking in a deep breath, he let loose a loud, shrieking whistle, one of many signals he and Allie had worked out as a means of locating one another. The whistle he'd just made was intended as a simple 'where are you?' question, no urgency intended. And with her excellent sense of hearing, she'd most definitely be able to hear it, even if she were on the other side of their territory.

A bellowing howl, almost like a wolf howling at the moon, answered in return a mere moment later. Turning in the direction it'd come from, he launched himself towards it. It took only a moment for him to spot the form of his sister. She was greedily feasting upon the remains of a small duckbill that she'd captured next to the river and huddled nearby in a jutting mass of massive roots was her nest of eggs.

Landing lightly upon the top of the roots a short distance above the nest, he crouched down and lifted his hand in greeting as Allie looked up towards him. With a soft growl, she leaned down to tear off a portion of the duckbill's tail and then threw it gently up at him. Catching the offered meal easily, he dropped down to the ground below to quickly light a small fire to cook his meal. It was because he'd landed practically right next to the nest that he noticed something inside it that didn't belong.

Setting aside the tail, he began humming loudly to draw Allie's attention as he reached in and withdrew a bright, shiny gold egg. Holding it up to Allie in an obvious question, he cocked his head to the side in askance. A noncommittal snort and Allie returning to her meal was all the answer he got, she didn't know what it was and she didn't care what he did with it as long as it didn't become a threat to her hatchlings.

Returning his attention to the egg, he experimentally turned it over, studying its shape and coloring. Even though he was fairly sure that this peculiar object was something the humans had created, he hadn't seen anything like this in all his time up there and thus was at loss for what it could be possibly used for. Was it some kind of new creature that they'd recently discovered and started exploiting? But that didn't seem right, given that the egg seemed to be made out of metal and was hollow inside, if that taps he made on it were accurate. Also it looked like the top portion of it could be turned. Did that mean it was suppose to open? Did it contain something perhaps? Thinking back on the strange situation he'd seen when they'd rescued the eggs, he began to wonder. Had they interrupted some kind of game or hunt? That was the only kind of explanation he could think of, given what he'd seen of it.

Despite every fiber of his being telling him not to, his curiosity got the better of him. He reached up and twisted the top portion to the side until it wouldn't move any further. Fidgeting with it, he lifted the opening piece and watched as perfectly symmetrical lines formed down the egg's shell. A split-second later, he instantly regretted and cursed his curiosity. A _horrible_, ear-splitting shrieking sound erupted from the inside of the egg the instant the sides opened, revealing a bright shining blue mass of energy at its core. But he paid absolutely no attention to that as his hands immediately flew up to his ears to protect his hearing. Acting reflexively, he dropped the golden egg and leapt away from the potential danger it presented with all of his considerable leg strength, which turned out to be a very good thing.

Allie, taken by surprise, reacted far more aggressively. After recovering from the shock of the ear-piercing shrieks, she spun around to face the culprit. Seeing that it was the strange object from the nest she'd accidentally taken with her, she charged it and lashed out at it. With her enormously powerful hind legs, she kicked out and sent the accursed thing flying away until it splashed down into the nearby river and instantly silenced the noise. Thanks to the strange blue energy that was glowing inside the egg, both he and Allie were able to watch as it was quickly swept away by the strong current until it disappeared around a bend.

Facing each other, Allie stared accusingly at her small partner and friend with a quiet growl. To his credit, he cowered in fear and was whimpering in apologetic tones, something he only did whenever he knew and admitted that he was in the wrong. Given the fact that such times were few and far between, Allie turned away with another dismissive snort. She could forgive him this time. But now it would be likely that they'd be missing out on dinner because of that _damn_ shrieking!

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**9:51pm**

It was with an air of resigned disappointment and reluctance that the group of newcomers came to a stop high in a tree. They settled down on the trunk of a large tree whose incredibly thick branches were spread wide to form a relatively large, natural type of platform.

From their perch, they had a truly breathtaking view of the jungle canopy for as far as the eye could see. And despite their slight rejection at the lack of successful activity, they couldn't help but to stop and stare at the natural beauty of the place. The canopy formed a thick green blanket that covered the distance in front of them, jutting up out of the trees at random intervals and distances were steep ridges and cliffs, waterfalls could be seen dropping off portions of some of the overhangs, and the cave ceiling was projecting a view of a clear, starry sky above them. Combined with the random calls and trumpeting of the dinosaurs within the forest and the buzzing of insects forming a type of white noise, there was something…relaxing about the scenery.

Turning from the view, Fleur set down her rucksack and pulled out her tent. With a causal flick of her wand, the tent erected itself and she went about anchoring it to the tree to prevent it possibly being blown off in a strong gust of wind. Spurred on by her sudden movement, her companions quickly joined her in setting up camp. Charlie dug out his and his brother's tents and began erecting them as Bill paced around the ten-meter wide platform, creating repellent and security wards.

With her task competed, Fleur dug out the food coolers and began preparing their meal. It was nothing big, just simple sandwiches, an apple and tomato apiece with some pumpkin juice. As she was busy doing this, Charlie approached and transfigured three chairs out of portions of the tree beneath them. Taking the offered meal from the Veela, Charlie nodded his thanks and then promptly sat down to eat, his gaze moving like magnets back towards the jungle view in front of them.

When Bill arrived, he and Fleur quickly struck up a small conversation on possible dueling strategies against the dinosaurs, but Charlie wasn't paying any attention to it. He was too busy trying to identify the different species of dinosaurs based on their sounds. During his brief search earlier and during their short flight through the forest after Fleur had woken up three hours later, he had already identified no less than ten different species of dinosaurs and he was more than willing to bet that were more still yet out there. The ones he'd already seen were obviously the large herd animals and their hunters: Iguanodons, Maiasaurs, Dacentrurus, Hylaeosaurus, Velociraptors, Megalosaurus, and even what looked like a premature Baryonyx back by a river they'd passed earlier.

Charlie was broken out of his thoughts by a loud, drawn-out trumpeting sound, much louder and closer than any of the others he'd since heard before. Refocusing his gaze forward, he quickly spotted the source of the howl. He watched with a growing smile as a group of at least thirty long-necked dinosaurs slowly ambled into view from behind a rock cliff a short distance away, at least a kilometer away. Add another species to his list.

"What are they, Charlie?" Bill asked as he and Fleur turned their attentions to the large dinosaurs.

"They look like Ampelosaurus from the Late Cretaceous Period," Charlie answered easily before putting on a knowing grin as he glanced at Fleur. "They were discovered near a vineyard in France."

Fleur blinked in surprise before giving the creatures in front of them a more thorough examination. From what little she could see of them in the darkness, they had rather broad necks and, if the foliage weren't playing tricks on her eyes, she could also see what looked like a layer of spikes covering its shoulders. If nothing else, they seemed incredible powerful due to their great size and weight.

It was with interest that she watched and listened the long-necked dinosaurs began a series of soft, calming bellows and howls. The noises they were making reminded her of when she'd been a young child and had gone a yacht cruise with her family. She had been able to play with a group of whales who had started singing and communicating to one another as they swam by in the ocean. And now, those giant lizards out there were doing the same thing, like they were singing. Strangely enough, it was a peculiarly soothing, if somewhat haunting melody they were doing.

Chuckling softly as an idea came to him, Bill stood up and moved as close to the edge of their little camp-tree as he could. Raising his hands to his mouth, he took a deep breath before letting out a loud sound that was somewhat similar to the bellows of the Ampelosaur herd. His call, though noticeably off-key, quickly drew the attention of the herd, even inviting a few of them to lift their heads up from where they'd been eating to look for the source of the call. They began letting loose a series of bellows in an attempt to locate the one who'd called them. It was an invitation that Bill didn't pass up.

"What are you doing?" Fleur asked, eyeing the attractive redhead curiously. He wasn't trying to show off to her, was he? She didn't recall even once trying to use her Veela charm on him. So what had brought this act on?

"Just playing with the birds," Bill answered quickly before returning to his earlier act. After a moment of exchanged calls, the longneck herd apparently lost interest and returned to their feeding.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted," he muttered to himself with a small smile.

"Now you'll have something to tell your kids about in ten years," Charlie said as his brother returned to his earlier seat. "That you got to sing choir with a group of dinosaurs. Wish I'd thought of that."

Snorting lightly, Fleur stood and rid herself of the remains of her meal. Tossing the apple core down to the jungle below and stuffing the empty pumpkin juice bottle back into the cooler, she turned to the boys and said, "I'll take first watch. You two get some sleep; we'll have a very busy day tomorrow."

The brothers merely nodded as they quickly complied with her orders. Turning her attention back to the jungle before them, she fingered her wand in anxiety. No matter what happened tomorrow, she was _determined_ to at least find some trail of where that boy had gone to and what that dinosaur had done to her golden egg.

* * *

(**Author Note**) Not much to say this time. Only that it's taken this long to get out because my muse has been wondering around an awful lot lately. Hopefully my newfound muse will stay geared towards this story for a little while longer now that I've gotten some more work down on it.

Please note that this list isn't anywhere near complete in listing all the different dinosaurs that live in the World Beneath, only those that Charlie has thus far been able to identify.

**Dinosaur List**:  
Megalosaurus—Middle Jurassic, Europe (Tetanurae, carnivore)  
Dacentrurus—Late Jurassic, Europe (Stegosauria, herbivore)  
Baryonyx—Early Cretaceous, Europe (Theropod, carnivore)  
Hylaeosaurus—Early Cretaceous, Europe (Anklosauria, herbivore)  
Iguanodon—Early Cretaceous, Europe/North America (Ornithopoda, herbivore)  
Ampelosaurus—Late Cretaceous, Europe (Sauropoda, herbivore)  
Maiasaur—Late Cretaceous, North America (Hadrosaurinae, herbivore)  
Velociraptor—Late Cretaceous, Asia (Theropod, carnivore)


	9. On the Hunt

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 9—On the Hunt_

**26 November 1994  
Saturday, 4:27am  
Jungle cavern**

Living a world full of giant monsters that can eat you whole as though you were nothing more than an appetizer tended to be a very nerve-wracking and almost unbearable experience at times. In such a world, the law of the jungle will _always_ reign supreme. And in such a world one either learned to survive by being _extremely_ quick on their feet and an _extremely_ light sleeper, or they died. This was _especially_ true if you were a creature who wasn't near the top of the food chain, but in the lethal mid-section.

It was thanks to their compliance to the jungle's laws and their habit of sleeping so lightly that helped the fourteen-year-old and his Allosaurus friend become aware of the situation. It had started with a series of soft chirps and squeaks. The first of these chirps had awakened the sleeping duo quite quickly, but they didn't spot any other creatures within their immediate vicinity, which confused the two of them and put them on the defensive. Then the chirps and squeaks began to come in much more loudly and insistently. It didn't take much more than a few moments for their sleep-fogged brains to process one very important fact: the noise was coming from the eggs, which were now starting to tremble slightly.

Allie's eggs were hatching!

To say that they were surprised would've been a gross understatement. He and Allie hadn't expected the eggs to hatch until at least another week or so. And given that this was her first batch, Allie was getting herself worked up into an almost panicked frenzy as she paced around their small den. She literally couldn't stand still for more than a second before moving forward and lovingly nudging or licking or purring next to one of her shaking eggs. Then she'd bounce back slightly in surprise and worry as the egg she'd administered the treatment to would tremble slightly more violently in response. In a strange way, it was as adorable as it was amusing to her partner.

After watching the scene from his perch up on the mass of roots he'd dropped onto earlier yesterday, he shook his head slightly as a smile crossed his face. He knew his sister was excited about this, and maybe more than a little worried. Given what had happened to her own siblings when she was a mere hatchling, he was willing to bet that she was going to be an _extremely_ overprotective mother for this batch. May the jungle show pity on whatever creatures tried to come between her and her hatchlings.

Rubbing his stomach as he felt a familiar ache of hunger run through it, he turned and moved towards the trunk of the giant fruit tree whose massive root system they were hiding in. Stretching his stiff limbs to get ache out and blood flowing into them, he looked up at the massive tree with a grin. The lowest hanging branch was at least an average tree's height above him. But even from that distance and the slowly waning darkness of early morning, he could still clearly see the countless hanging fruits above him. Climbing up to those would make for a good warm up exercise before he went hunting for his soon-to-be extended family. There was _no way_ Allie would leave her eggs' side now, or that he would've _let_ her.

Turning to Allie, he let out a short bark followed by two deep grunts. This roughly translated into: _I'm_ _leaving, I'll be back soon_. Without waiting for an answer, he started his climb up the trunk, using two of his animal teeth daggers to help him more easily scale the tree's rugged trunk.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**6:33am**

With a jaw-wrenching yawn, Bill sat up as he heard a loud, insistent voice calling his name from the outside of his tent. Was it really morning already? It felt like he'd fallen asleep only a few minutes ago.

Climbing out of his bed and exiting his tent, Bill had to visibly wince in agony as morning's blinding light lit up his face. Taking an extra deep yawn of the early morning's curiously low humidity as he rubbed his eyes, Bill suppressed a sigh of annoyance. That ever-present smell that filled the air so potently in this jungle cavern was really starting to get on his nerves. He may have be an outdoors man who easily adapted to environments that most people would've found highly uncomfortable if they weren't already accustomed to it, but this strange fragrance in the air was just driving him spare.

"Morning, Bill," Charlie called out from his chair stump, a happy brightness that seemed to radiate from him in nearly-visible waves. He was fiddling with a large chunk of tree bark, having already finished his own breakfast. "You'll never guess out what I've just discovered here."

"The secret location of the Lost Pyramid of Giza?" he asked somewhat irritably as he turned and rummaged through the coolers for a bowl of cereal and fruit.

"_Where my egg is?_" a drowsy voice asked in French behind him. Yawning cutely herself, Fleur walked up beside him to grab herself a bottle of pumpkin juice from a nearby cooler. Without missing a beat, they switched places to gather the rest of their meals.

Despite not understanding her question, Charlie answered anyway, "I've found out where that smell is coming from and what it is." Sitting down on their own transfigured tree stump chairs, Bill and Fleur quietly began their meal while listening to Charlie with only partial interest. "It's the trees. They're emitting strong acidic vapors from their bark and leaves. It probably helps protect them from infectious diseases, parasites, and maybe even certain kinds of insects."

"Then why can't we block it out with a Bubble-head Charm?" Bill asked between bites, starting to take an interest in his brother's discovery now.

"I don't know," Charlie answered almost cheerfully. "Though, to be honest, I don't think that I'd _want_ to use the Charm anyway. If my guess is right, that is."

"Huh? Why?" Fleur asked, quite confused why the man would prefer to breathe the stench.

"I've come across stuff like this before," he admitted. "This acidic vapor of the trees is like what they've got in the dragon preserves of Peru, although nowhere _near_ as strong as here. And the humid environment is like the tropical rainforests. The high humidity forces a person to breathe deeper. And the bark vapor acts like natural lung filters, which can clean our lungs of most kinds of pollutants in the air. This, in turn, helps the body absorb more air and improve your circulatory system."

Seeing his audiences' undisguised surprise at his obviously in-depth knowledge, he smiled and said, "In other words, the vapor is helping you breathe better, will help improve your mental concentration, and might even help you heal from wounds quicker."

"That's…convenient," Bill said, not knowing what else to say as his whirled with the information and what it could mean for people if they could learn to harness it.

"Heh, just think of what that kid's body is probably like if he's lived here for at least a year, if not more," Charlie muttered. Pausing as a thought struck him, he frowned as he turned back to his companions. "You know, I wonder if he's even got a name. Do you think we should think of something to call him? I mean 'kid' isn't exactly what I'd want to call him on our first acquaintance if he doesn't have a name."

As the brothers fell into idle chatter over what to name the kid, Fleur's mind had drifted back to what she'd remembered of the boy. With the new information of what he'd been living in, a world of dinosaurs and the acidic air that cleaned his lungs and body, a strange new feeling began to settle in her. And that feeling was of respect. She remembered watching him sprint into the Forbidden Forest, and then again when he had caught her when the dinosaur had thrown her into the air. Just how physically strong was he from having to live in these conditions? But she had at least one fact to go on, given what she now knew. This was that the scars on his face had the look of being long healed, despite how large and deep they must've originally been. He must've been in this jungle for _at least_ a year, if not two!

As the memory of him drinking from the stream with the wolf drifted through her mind, something prominent about the dinosaur kid stuck out in her mind. Suddenly, a somehow appropriate name popped into her mind for him.

Standing up after finishing her small breakfast, Fleur moved over to the coolers to stash away her trash. "Come, boys," she barked. "We're wasting daylight and I want to find Harry _today_ and get back home by _tomorrow_."

"Harry?" the brothers chorused simultaneously. Glancing at each other for a moment, a strange look crossed their faces for a moment. Then they smiled at likely an inside joke before shrugging and obeying their team leader's instructions.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**8:34am**

With a slow, steady breath, he sat in perfect silence as still as a rock. His body was covered in a new, dark green cloak that he'd left up in the fruit tree several weeks ago. It was still missing its sleeves, but that was an easily-remedied handicap. His long, matted dark hair was temporarily tucked into the cloak as well, to better conceal him as he continued his hunt. With the cloak draped over his body with a careful application of masking scents to cover the almost-dissipated stink of the smoke and with mud smeared in liberal amounts over his arms and face, he looked like nothing more than a moss-covered addition to the rock ledge he was on. The only source of movement from the small hunter was a set of leaf-green eyes that were following every step and dip of his prey, selectively analyzing which ones would be the easiest to kill.

Down below him only a couple dozen paces away were a small family of some of the larger animals. The adults were extremely large when compared to him, with a set of long and narrow faces. They alternated from walking on all fours and rearing up on their back legs to reach the higher vegetation of the trees with their seemingly-awkward forearms and stubby talons. Some of the bigger ones liked to throw all of their considerable weight onto the poor trees and vegetation to more easily reach the leaves. Among all the other animals in this jungle, these Iguanodons were some of the especially more common and noisy ones.

He watched with carefully measured breaths as one of his potential targets neared the trap he'd set up several hours ago. Another few paces forward and the young creature would be caught. There was another one that was lazily moving towards a concealed pit that he'd lined with sharpened stakes. And, perhaps most importantly, there was a juvenile just under his hiding spot, so close that he couldn't quite literally dropped down and landed atop it. If neither of the other two were ensnared before he could reach them, it would be this one below him that he'd have to target before it panicked and fled with the herd.

He needed at least one to feed Allie and the hatchlings. But if he was extremely lucky, he'd be able to get two of these; one for himself and Allie to share and one for the babies.

Slowly and carefully adjusting his position so as to attract as little attention as possible, he pulled out his weapons of choice. Gently setting his spear to the side, he gripped his bow tightly in one hand, clenching two spare arrows between his fingers while he set another upon the bow in preparation for taking the shot. Though his eyes were directed towards the youngling below him, his attention was focused upon the subtle movements of the herd. They were leisurely moving through the brush, demolishing one fern patch after another with the steady calmness of a passing river.

Slowly rising to a more comfortable firing position, he drew the arrow back and waited patiently for the right moment. The youngling over by the spiked pit was…almost…there. With a loud yelp of surprise and the crashes of branches breaking, the small Iguanodon fell over the edge and toppled into the pit. Even before the rustlings of the falling brush had settled, the Iguanodon's cries of intense pain rushed out of the pit. The noise instantly attracted the attentions of the rest of the herd in alarm and curiosity.

This was the moment that he'd been waiting for. The moment the noise drew the attention of the adults away, he released the arrow. The deadly shaft flew fast and true, burying its lethal tip and a portion of the shaft into the base of the young Iguanodon's skull that was below him. With its spinal column severed, the poor creature collapsed lifelessly to the ground. It was dead before it'd even had a catch to settle.

Forgoing stealth now that the trap was sprung, he sprung to his feet and dropped the ground by his kill. As he stood up, he called upon that dormant power inside him. Spreading his arms wide, he cast his power out and created one of his old favorites of hunting techniques. The area around him and the Iguanodons suddenly took on a threatening red coloring as an oppressive and hungry presence descended upon the herbivores. The Iguanodons, already fairly close to fleeing, abruptly turned and fled through the forest, as far away from the terrible predator that was bearing down on them.

Sighing and relaxing his control of the illusion, he yanked out the arrow and quickly took hold of his closest prey. Though the young Iguanodon was just as large as he was but weighed quite a bit more, he hefted it up and slung it over his shoulder. It had taken a long time, almost six years, but he was only now beginning to truly acquire the needed muscle strength to carry some of his larger prey. He could carry most dinosaurs that weighed more than twice of himself with relative ease. Before, he'd have had to cut off whatever chunks of meat he'd wanted and then abandon the rest to scavengers or predators.

Hurrying over to the Iguanodon in the pit, he set down the dead one on his back and fired another arrow in the thrashing animal below. It was almost a mercy to the creature when he killed it. With another flex of his obscure power, he lifted the dead Iguanodon out of the pit and set it to one side. Turning back to his first kill, he picked it back up and started climbing up the nearest tree. Upon setting the corpse down on the first tree limb that looked strong enough to hold it, he dropped silently back to the ground to repeat the same action with the other one.

Just as he was lifting the Iguanodon up, he heard it. It was a low growl in the shrubbery that was near him, the growl of a predator. In an instant, he dropped the carcass to the ground, spun around to face the predator, and drew his spear. With a loud snarl of his own, he placed himself between his kill and his rival. The predator leapt out of the bushes and rushed forward with its large mouth of sharp teeth open and ready.

His mood had taken a sudden darker turn as he recognized the profile of the predator in front of him. The hunter was every bit as tall and large as Allie, even possessing the same body shape and layout. However, where Allie was rusty-brown with light green stripes, this creature was a deep green with splashes of black and brown covering its backside and face. And it was the species that had been slowly but surely forcing Allie's race towards extinction, a Megalosaurus.

The Megalosaurus lunged at him at almost full-sprint, clearly hoping to snatch him up in its powerful jaws and crush his small body before he had a chance to retaliate. However, he leapt up high into the air, his body straight and rolling at high speeds, as the Megalosaurus stampeded underneath him. Landing and spinning to face his opponent faster than it could halt its movement, he reached down and grabbed the Iguanodon carcass. Heaving it over his shoulder, he summoned up his power and channeled it into his legs. Just as the Megalosaurus was about to pounce on him, he took a mighty leap straight up. With his power greatly amplifying his leg strength, he easily sailed a significant distance up into the air. He managed to grab the tree next to him and hang on for dear life.

Seeing that its rival had managed to steal its desired meal, the Megalosaurus let out a loud roar of anger. Then it rushed forward and began ramming its body into the tree, trying to make him lose his grip on either the tree or the corpse. The powerful impacts of the dinosaur's body did indeed shockwaves through the tree, but he didn't lose his grip. Instead, the shaking tree only further encouraged him to climb higher faster.

Reaching the limb that still held his first kill, he set his second kill down and turned his attention back to the dinosaur below him. By now the Megalosaurus had ceased pounding on the tree and was glaring hungrily up at him, saliva dripping from its jaws. Snorting in a dismissive manner, he made a show of blatantly ignoring it as he snatched up some vines that were growing over the tree he was on. As he was busy weaving the vines into a rope, the predator below him finally gave up and stalked off with angry growls.

When he finished with strapping his new rope together, he tied one of the corpses securely to the tree. Even though he was now finally getting some muscle upon his body, he still wasn't strong enough to carry two of these things at once, juveniles or not. Satisfied that it wouldn't be going anywhere until he returned, he tucked his second kill under his arm as he leapt from the tree limb for the next one. It would take him a while to reach Allie because of the burden he was carrying, but he'd definitely be safer than just rushing through the jungle floor.

Unnoticed by him, a trio of flying silhouettes was watching his slow progress. They'd found him when he'd created his hunting illusion to scare the Iguanodon herd. Now, after a small amount of quiet debate, they were silently following him from high in the air.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**10:01am  
Hogwarts, Dumbledore's Office**

"Thank you for your time, Headmaster," the French Head Auror said in a stiff but neutral voice as he closed the door behind him.

Dumbledore let out a long sigh of relief now that that meeting was finally over. He leaned back heavily into his office chair and wearily rubbed his throbbing temples. Really, why were the French making such a big deal out of this fiasco? Yes, a boy had interrupted an international event. Yes, the said boy had unintentionally stolen the Beauxbatons' champion's egg. Yes, he had vanished into the Forbidden Forest with a pet dinosaur. And yes, Dumbledore had only sent two people off to help Ms. Delacour find her egg. But why were they treating all this like it was a secret plot to discredit their school and country?

Things had not settled down for the Wizarding World since that little incident had occurred, not in the slightest. In fact, it seemed more likely that things were going to boil over in the worst ways imaginable if they continued as they were. Upon learning of the interruption of the Tournament, the French Ministry had been very quick to send their Aurors into Great Britain and then to Hogsmeade Village. This sudden 'invasion' of nearly the entire French Aurors into their country had caused quite a bit of ruckus in the British Ministry, who'd scrambled their own Aurors in response. Numerous fights and an unending argument had broken out between the two sides before the French Head Auror had called for a meeting with the British Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Though the meeting had been an official one, Dumbledore hadn't been the least bit surprised to notice that it was also being used a delaying action to allow the French Aurors to start sneaking into the Forbidden Forest to search for their wayward Champion and her helpers.

It hadn't taken long for the first scouts to report back to their seniors. They'd found the group of dragon handlers who'd initially charged after the boy and his dinosaur when they'd stolen the nest. Dumbledore had been getting rather worried when they hadn't returned that first day. But to actually have his worst fears confirmed had been a very big letdown for him. Of the ten handlers, only three of them had survived the apparent fight with the boy when they'd caught up to him. Three had been killed during the battle while the rest had all been injured in some fashion, four of them dying from those injuries a short time afterwards. These deaths had effectively sealed the boy's fate: he was a wanted murderer with a one-way ticket to Azkaban when they caught him. And since the dead wizards were all Englishmen, this had essentially caused the formerly opposed Aurors to side with one another in an all-out search for the scarred kid.

It was also news of those deaths that had pushed the French Head Auror to rush up and have a heated argument with Dumbledore over the wisdom of allowing their Champion to run off unsupervised and in sending only two wizards to aid her (no matter how skilled they were in their jobs). Thankfully, it seemed that…certain _issues_ with the Centaur herd in the Forbidden Forest had forced the man to leave prematurely. Though he did wish the man good fortune in his dealings with the centaurs, Dumbledore couldn't help but feel grateful for the reprieve.

At that moment, a brown owl swooped into the office through the open window and landed on Dumbledore's desk in front of him. It held out its leg to show a slip of parchment tied haphazardly to it. Quickly taking the letter and giving the bird a small owl treat, Dumbledore opened the parchment and read.

'_We've found tracks that lead to a cave and it's in the heart of the Centaur Territory. We're going to investigate it shortly. Try to stall the Aurors as long as you can. RL._' It was by Remus Lupin.

Despite the bleakness of the overall situation, Dumbledore felt a small smile of relief light up his face. It was nice to know that at least his men seemed to still be one step ahead of the others. He'd sent Lupin and Sirius into the forest as soon as he could get word to them at Grimmauld Place. As the only members of the Order that didn't have reliable jobs, they were the only ones he could send to go find and hopefully catch the boy before other…unsatisfactory people did.

Though they were still unconfirmed suspicions, Dumbledore still clung to the hope and belief that that boy was actually Harry Potter, their long-lost savior. If he could reach the boy before the others did, perhaps he could still somehow turn things around and set them back on the course they should've been. He could change the boy's identity enough that everyone would think that he was a completely different person from the feral boy who now had a death sentence. It was Dumbledore and, once he understood his own importance, the boy's only hope for things turning out safely for the greater good of the people.

The hunt to find and capture the scarred boy was on.

* * *

(**Author's Note**) Not much to say this time. Sorry about the long wait, I've been very busy lately trying to find new work, posting chapters for my other two stories, debating ideas with my friends, and trying to reenlist in the military. Hopefully the next couple chapters will be out sooner.

Although I may have had Remus and Sirius find the entrance to the World Beneath, I really haven't thought up any new ideas for what could happen to them when/if they reach it. If you're willing to share some with me, please PM me and we'll discuss what you've got.

Next chapter: Harry, Allie, and the hatchlings receive unwanted visitors.


	10. The Nest

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 10—The Nest_

**26 November 1994  
Saturday, 10:27am  
Jungle cavern**

They watched with varying degrees of awe as the jungle boy weaved his way through the trees and across the canopy. The way he was able to sprint, jump, catch, swing, slide, and balance through the branches and vines, across jagged rock cliffs, and even certain fallen trees was nothing short of amazing. They knew that the sheer amount of muscle strength needed to perform such feats for even a short time was simply incredible. The fact that the kid was able to do all of this for almost ten kilometers now, while carrying a dinosaur carcass that must've been just as heavy as he was, only made the feat all the more unbelievable. The fact that he seemed able to do all this with such apparent ease was a rather humbling experience to them.

"Look at him go!" Charlie muttered from where he was floating in the air next to Fleur. The awe was obvious in his voice, with a hint of jealousy.

"You'd think Harry's been eating steroids like candy," Bill said quietly, a good deal more composed than Charlie.

Glancing over at the Veela hovering between them, Bill spotted an interesting play of expressions on her face. Her eyes were slightly narrowed, clearly scrutinizing the boy's body strength. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line with a slight pout to it, probably from jealousy of Harry's acrobatic skill. And there was a curious amount of red on her face. However due to the staggering amount of humidity in the air which was causing them soak their clothes with sweat, Bill wasn't sure if what he was seeing was a blush or flush.

"What's the plan, Miss Delacour?" he asked.

Shaking herself from her musings, Fleur looked over at Bill for a moment before returning her attention to following after Harry down below. "We'll follow him. He's probably bringing his kill home to feed his pet. I'll get the egg after he leaves."

"I don't think that's going to work," Bill said as he floated after her, trying _very_ hard not to stare at her perfectly shaped bum. "It's never that easy, Miss Delacour. What if he doesn't have the golden egg anymore?"

"Then I'll _hurt_ him," Fleur growled savagely. Feeling the brothers' gazes upon her, she glanced back to them and added, "Politely."

Despite himself, Charlie chuckled quietly the dangerous tone in her voice. Bill, however, wasn't amused. He felt like he was watching an approaching train wreck, knowing it was coming but completely unable to stop the disaster from happening. Resigning himself to once again play the part of a submissive underling, Bill returned his attention to where the longhaired teenager seemed to be heading.

The boy wasn't traveling in a straight line, for obvious reasons. He followed along the general line of the trees for a short ways before suddenly dropping down to the forest floor. It took only a moment to see that the next couple trees ahead of him appeared too small and weak to use for his parkour method of travel. Upon landing in slight skid on the ground, he took off running at the speed an Olympic sprinter through the ferns and brush for at least another few minutes. Pulling out the narrow trees as he reached the top of a narrow rock ledge, Harry leapt up and grabbed a vine, quickly pulling himself back up into the jungle canopy. Once again, he resumed his chaotic journey through the tree tops.

Because he was flying high above the boy, Bill was able to spot two things. The first thing was that there seemed to be an _enormous_ tree only a short kilometer or two away, its massive root system and outstretching branches that cast large shadows under it effectively created something of a clearing underneath it. The second thing he noticed was that the boy was heading right towards it, despite coming to the edge of a river canyon.

As Harry was approaching the final tree atop this canyon cliff, still in mid-air, he shifted the carcass off of his backside and clutched it with his legs. Reaching his arms out, Harry caught branch that he was falling towards. But because he wasn't near the base of the trunk, almost three-quarters of the way down its length actually, the branch bent and groaned as it was suddenly pulled downwards. Bill was half-expecting Harry to suddenly release his grip and drop to the ground a short distance beneath him so he could climb down the cliff just in front of him. Instead, Harry held on and allowed himself to be swung around the branch numerous times. With each rotation he made carrying the extra weight of the carcass under him, the momentum began to build very quickly into a powerful whiplash action from the branch.

Just as he was swinging out from under the branch yet again, Harry suddenly released his kill and sent it flying through the air towards the giant tree in front of him. Bill could only watch in disbelief as the boy suddenly whipped over and under the tree branch as it made yet another downwards dip. Quick as a flash, Harry was mounted upon the branch as it began its upwards arc. Using the branch's high amount of momentum, Harry leapt off it towards where his kill was flying through the air. With a great cheer of triumph and exhilaration, the boy soared upward at surprising speeds and caught his prize.

"He's mad!" Charlie sputtered out as he gawked at the feral teenager. "That's the only explanation! He's totally and unprecedentedly whack in the head!" Bill could only nod in agreement as he watched the kid reached the zenith of his jump and began to fall back to the earth. Yet, interestingly, Harry didn't seem any more concerned or scared than he had been throughout the entire trip.

Idly repositioning the carcass over his shoulders again, Harry let out another loud cry. It sounded like a series of excited chirps and barks, mixed with some laughter. After a moment of this noise, he suddenly stopped, waiting patiently as he continued to fall towards the mass of assorted tree roots. Just as his audience was wondering what he was doing, there came an answer to his call in the form of a loud series of roars and snarls. The noise seemed to be coming from the base of the giant tree's trunk.

Despite all the crazy acrobatics that they'd seen him do up to this point, Bill, Charlie, and Fleur were all fully expecting Harry to crash and get seriously injured upon the large tree roots he was fast approaching. Instead, rather than try to stop his momentum when he landed upon a large, curving root, he turned his fall into a graceful slide down and then up over the root. Jumping over another root that was growing over it, Harry performed a perfect split of his legs, catching a pair of roots to his sides and continued sliding forward as the one beneath him suddenly dipped underground.

With a small push, he bounced upwards as he approached another large root. One hand reached up to hold his kill steady on his shoulders while the other bounced across the surface of the root, guiding his direction of travel as he went into a somersault over the root. Completing his flip, he brought his feet back under his body and went into another slide that quickly changed into a sprint before leaping over yet another oversized root that was in his way. Somehow despite the seemingly unmanageable mess, Harry made impressively good time reaching the base of the tree trunk.

As he neared the trunk, Bill spotted something interesting. There seemed to be a large nook in the tree's trunk, not easily visible or accessible but it was there. He watched as Harry finally came to a stop upon one of the large roots that overlooked the hidden nook of the trunk between the massive roots. Harry let out a loud warning bark before he lifted the carcass off his shoulders and dropped it to the ground unceremoniously. Before he could think to move to a better position to see inside, Bill's attention was momentarily drawn to Fleur as she let out a quiet growl. Why was she glaring at Harry all of a sudden?

Excited squeaks and chirps quickly brought Bill back to focus. Quietly repositioning themselves, the magical trio stared in slight surprise at the sight that greeted them. Five Allosaurus hatchlings were cautiously approaching where Harry was crouching above them while the Allosaurus mother began tearing the carcass into pieces small enough for her babies to eat.

Even though he considered himself to be a fairly strong-stomached man, Bill found himself growing slightly queasy at the sight of the Allosaurus tearing into the body of the dead dinosaur and splashing blood everywhere. He had to look away for a moment to let his mind adjust and get the blood to return to his face. Because he was looking towards them, he spotted that Fleur was having almost the same reaction as himself, but Charlie didn't seem to notice his companions' plight at the bloody scene. Awkwardly, Fleur dropped to the mass of roots below her and promptly vomited, losing what remained of her breakfast. Unlike Charlie or even Bill, she wasn't accustomed to such grisly sights.

After a moment of indecision, Bill decided to allow Fleur a chance to regain her composure and dignity so he remained where he and Charlie continued to hover. Thanks to the special Concealment charms that Fleur had placed over them, the two brothers could openly hover directly in front of the strange family and not be noticed by any of them except each other. That was how Charlie and Bill were able to watch as Harry finally decided to jump down from his roosting spot and greet the young hatchlings.

The moment he touched down, the hatchlings were immediately jumping upon and tackling the boy. Harry took the game in stride, picking a pair of them up and gently swinging the hatchlings through the air before allowing to the others pull him back to the ground. However Bill noticed that whenever one of the hatchlings tried to take a bite out of him, Harry would immediately swat the creature upon its nuzzle and let out a soft, warning growl. Yet there was no malice in the boy as he played with the creatures. In fact, judging from the large smile on his face and quiet laughter, Harry seemed to treating the hatchlings like playful young children and not like a person would treat pets like cats and dogs.

Rising back into the air at a slow speed, Fleur looked a slight bit better as she returned her attention to the family of seven. The mother Allosaurus had just finished tearing out the innards of the dinosaur carcass and lightly tossed the disemboweled liver over towards her playing children. Catching sight of the meat, the five hatchlings immediately abandoned their game of tackling Harry and ripped into the bloody organ with a furious gusto. The sight of the little monsters tearing the organ to pieces, spraying blood everywhere, including upon themselves, was enough to even make Charlie feel rather queasy. Fleur had guessed what they were up to and had turned away just before the feasting began.

Harry's response to this was to laugh quietly before catching the piece of tail that the mother had thrown to him. Taking off his large bow, quiver of arrows, and spear, he dropped lightly to the ground and began slicing the skin off his meal with one of the daggers he wore. The quick and methodical way he went about it made it clear to Charlie and Bill that he'd likely done this countless times before. Once the skin was removed, he held the bloody meat in both hands and nodded his head as though praying. It wasn't until a moment later that the two watching brothers realized that he was in fact using his magic. Harry's hands began to glow a light red color as the meat of the tail began to cook and sizzle, small trails of smoke starting to rise. Judging that his meal was properly cooked, Harry ceased his magic and reached into his leather pouch that was hanging at his side, withdrawing something small and red that he squeezed over the meat before enthusiastically biting into it.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Fleur muttered, her face was as white as snow as she tried looking every which way but where the dinosaurs were having their meal.

"What's the plan, Miss Delacour?" Bill asked finally. "Should we come back after they're finished?"

Fleur looked at him in an almost helpless fashion with her ashen face. For a split second, Bill wondered if she was going to black out. But then she seemed to master herself and turned away, floating up towards the branches of the massive tree above them. Following her lead, the brothers flew up and landed upon the first limb they reached. The incredible tree had limbs that were even wider than all three of together were tall. The branch they stood upon must've been the size of the Hogwarts Express at the very least!

Crouching down on the limb on all fours, Fleur just sat there for a long moment to recover her equilibrium. Raising her face to watch the brothers, she just sat quietly as she tried to forget about the bloody scene that was taking place below her. Charlie sat further out on the limb and pulled out a pair of omnioculars from his rucksack to watch the family of Allosaurus continuing to go about their business, oblivious to their audience. Bill had plucked one of the fruits hanging from the trees and had begun examining it for possible consumption.

As she felt herself slowly returning back to normal from her near black out, Fleur's mind began to puzzle out how to she was going to go about finding her egg. The most logical conclusion was that it was either still in the nest or the wild child had thrown it out somewhere once they'd arrived in this jungle. First she needed to confirm that the egg was even still there. If it was, then she'd have to find some way of getting the dinosaurs away long enough to get it because she was fairly sure that the golden egg had anti-Summoning and anti-Levitation charms on it just to increase the difficulty of the original Task. If it wasn't there, then there was really only one person she could go to who'd likely know what happened to it. But from what she'd seen so far, Fleur didn't wanna place too much hope on the possibility that Harry could talk in a language that she (or Bill even) could understand.

Fleur felt like she was about ready to cry out in despair. She didn't want to come anywhere close to those monsters when they were eating, just the memories of the sight of those little monsters tearing at the carcass was enough to make her queasy for crying out loud! However, she understood that it would be best to attack while the family was off guard. It would be tricky enough trying to get close to the nest with the mother there, doubly so now that her eggs had hatched.

"Hey, Fleur," Charlie called out lightly from where he was still watching the Allosaurus below. When he felt the Veela's gaze on him, he continued, "Come here and take a look at this. I just noticed something important that you'll probably want to see."

Cautiously moving over towards the redhead, Fleur took the omnioculars from him and looked through them. Immediately she watched the recording of the activity of the nest that he'd made just a few moments ago. She watched as how the hatchlings began gnawing upon pieces of bone, still clearly very hungry. She watched how the mother moved over towards where Harry was quietly snacking on his meal and how the boy absently reached up to scratch a portion of her scaly scalp, an action that caused the ferocious dinosaur to start shivering and twitching like a cat enjoying being petted. Then she watched as the view shifted over towards the unoccupied nest. Inside the nest she could see multiple shell fragments and slight upheaval of the nest where the hatchlings must've accidentally broken through. But her golden egg was nowhere in sight.

Slowly lowering the omnioculars, Fleur absentmindedly handed them back to Charlie as she contemplated this. Her egg was no longer in the possession of the wild child and his dinosaur. That meant that she no longer needed to worry about storming the nest. She couldn't help but to thank every Muggle and magical deity that had ever existed for this. She just didn't think that that she could successfully pull off an attack on this nest. However, it opened up a broad new spectrum of problems. Foremost among them being: _where was her egg now?_

A quiet gagging broke the Veela from her thoughts as she and Charlie turned to face Bill. He had apparently cut himself a slice of the fruit he was holding and taken a small bite. Bill had dropped the fruit slice in his hand and brought it up to cover his mouth with his face bright red and tears leaking out of his eyes. Noticing his audience, he quickly swallowed the small bite and smiled weakly towards them. Holding the strawberry-sized pink fruit, he weakly said, "Don't eat the small ones, they're _extremely_ sour."

Lightly tossing the fruit behind him, he began, "So what are we go—?" Only to be cut off by a loud explosion of smoke and fire as the fruit burst apart upon hitting the tree limb a short meter behind him. The explosion, though not near dangerous enough to kill, was strong enough and close enough to throw up a concussive shockwave that sent Bill stumbling forward in surprise.

"You okay?" Charlie and Fleur asked simultaneously as they rushed to Bill's side. Bill only nodded mutely as he lifted himself up and stared at their worried faces almost blankly. Looking back towards where the fruit had exploded, they saw a small blackened area that marked the point of impact.

"Yeah, but that was surprising," Bill commented lamely as he returned his attention to Fleur and Charlie.

Seeing that his brother was alright, Charlie just grinned cheekily at him after he overcame his own surprise.

"The fruit blow up?" Fleur demanded, staring at the darkened area and still not believing what had happened. If they exploded, why did Harry and the Allosaurus make this tree their nesting grounds?

"I don't think that the ripe ones do," Bill said as he gestured towards the low hanging branch he'd picked the fruit from. Fleur glanced at the indicated branch to see several clusters of the fruit hanging from it in a manner that wasn't at all dissimilar to coconuts. One cluster was about the size of strawberries and a light pink color, while another nearby group was almost as gigantic as apples with slightly darker shade of pink. But the biggest group of fruit that she could see was the size of small pineapples and was so dark a pink coloring that they were a deep red. "The one I took was one of the smaller ones, probably still not finished in ripening."

'_Even something as harmless as __**fruit**__ is potentially dangerous down here!_' Fleur realized, suddenly feeling even more scared of the environment than she already had been.

"Heh, this place just keeps getting more interesting!" Charlie chirped with a strange grin on his face, earning a disbelieving stare from the Veela.

"Anyways," Bill said, trying to return their attentions back to the issue at hand. "What do you have planned, Ms. Delacour?"

"We don't have to attack the nest," Fleur said turning back to the more serious (and handsome) brother. "Harry doesn't have the egg anymore. But…I think we should catch him and try to force him to talk, get him to tell us what happened to the egg."

"What if he doesn't know what happened?"

"Or can even understand us?" Charlie asked quietly.

"…Then we have a _long_ search ahead of us," Fleur said, her gaze shifting to the expanse of jungle that was visible for as far as the eye could see.

Chuckling slightly with a smirk, Charlie added, "Don't worry, I'm sure you could get Harry to help us if you _charm_ your way into his good graces."

Fleur had the grace to blush ever-so-slightly before she leveled a glare on the younger Weasley. Quickly turning her attention back to the family below them, Fleur used the omnioculars to watch the teenager in question a bit more closely. Seeing that the Veela wasn't planning to jump headfirst into a fight with scar-faced boy like what was common with many Gryffindors, Bill and Charlie went back to their devices. Bill was soon examining the apple-sized fruit (much more carefully this time) and Charlie dug out some drinks for them. In this humidity, they needed constant supply of fluids.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**12:07pm**

It had started as nothing more than a heavy mist that rolled into the area. But the mist quickly condensed and began forming drops of water that clung to everything. Then the heavy mist turned into a drizzle. Aided by a sudden strong wind storm, the drizzle rapidly changed into a torrential downpour that wouldn't have been out of place at the tropics.

Holding a bottle under a large leaf, Fleur waited patiently for the bottle to fill with the runoff rain. Fleur wasn't sure whether to be grateful or not for the sudden rainstorm. On the one hand, the rain helped cool them off from the humidity and heat of the jungle. Granted, the heat was still present but nowhere near as noticeable and heavy as it had been. On the other hand, she disliked the sensation of wet clothes. And although the wind was warm, the soaked clothes she wore sent shivers down her spine. Warming charms could only go so far and in this contradictory environment of tropical humidity and heat with cool rain, they wouldn't work as they were intended. And she couldn't seem to get any of her rain-repelling charms to work for some reason. It was an unexplainable magical phenomenon that she decided ranked in the same category as to why the Bubble-head couldn't filter out the tree vapors.

Taking back her now full water bottle, she greedily drank the refreshing liquid while wiping off the rain and sweat covering her brow. Who knew working in the rain and setting up a series of traps around the remaining corpse that Harry had left hanging in a tree could be so exhausting? She had dug ten deep pits that surrounded the area around the carcass. Each pit had perfectly smooth edges to prevent anything from easily escaping them. She concealed the pits with the same type of Hovering charm that had been used on the one at the cave entrance. But that wasn't all she did with them. Above each pit there were some tree branches that Harry could likely had used to jump upon. She had coated each branch with powerful Sticking charms and had jinxed each branch to break off from the tree from even the slightest bit of outside pressure (excluding the wind and rain). Should Harry land on any of those branches, he'd find himself stuck to them and falling into the concealed pit below.

She set up an invisible net directly over the corpse that would drop and automatically ensnare around Harry when he arrived by the carcass. With a hidden pit under it, this was her first line of attack. And to make sure that he actually stayed put long enough for the net to catch him, she bound the carcass to the tree limb with a powerful Sticking charm (which she doubled checked that it actually worked). She had also set up a number of wards that would alert her to any and all movement that took place within their perimeter. Several times already she'd been alerted to some random dinosaurs that wandered into the area, though they left quite quickly for some reason that she didn't understand.

But if none of those worked, she knew she'd likely have to engage him in battle. The Disillusionment charm would be invaluable in that case and, if the brothers' theory was correct, she had an entire reservoir of spells she could use that'd indirectly affect him. If worse came to worse, she hoped that her Veela charm could distract him long enough for her cast a stunner at one of the exposed portions of his body like the arms or face.

Nodding to herself in acceptance of her ambush plans, Fleur again wiped her brow of rain and sweat and collected her broomstick. After a few minutes of hard flying through the unpleasantly cool rain, she returned to the giant tree where the brothers were waiting for her to return. Landing lightly on the same tree limb as before, she quickly spotted what they had been up to in her absence. Bill and Charlie had transfigured a small shelter and platform out of a portion of the tree limb. It offered protection from the rain and an opening in the center that was large enough for a person to fly through on a broom. Combined with the omnioculars, they could easily see what was taking place below them. But when she flew up inside, she found them experimenting with the strange exploding fruit that hung around them.

"Welcome back," Bill greeted pleasantly as they looked up from their work. Though he did his best not to, he couldn't help but stare at Fleur's soaked figure. Thanks to the rain, her clothes were completely soaked and clinging to her body like a second skin, revealing a generous amount of her incredible body. Averting his gaze before she caught him staring, he said, "We were just about to go check up on you."

"So, what'd you do?" Charlie asked interestedly.

"I dug several holes and put some nets," she hinted, purposely vague. How dare they just sit here playing with firecrackers while she had been hard at work! With a small scowl on her face, she went about casting drying and warming charms over herself. She hated wet clothes, especially when the clothes clung to her

Picking up on the Veela's bad mood, the brothers quietly returned to their earlier activities. Once desirably comfortable again, Fleur grabbed herself one of the sandwiches that the Weasleys had been generous enough to leave out for her and greedily devoured them. Hunger sated for the time being, she took the omnioculars and sat down by the opening of the platform to watch her unknowing target.

Things seemed to have settled down somewhat for the family of giant reptiles. The hatchlings had retreated back to their nest for a little nap after their meal and following roughhousing. The mother monster was routinely pacing around the small opening in front and around the nest area, patrolling for lurking danger to her young. Harry had returned to his perch upon the massive tree root that overlooked the nesting area and seemed to be fiddling with something that looked like a chunk of bone. Even after zooming in with the omnioculars, Fleur still wasn't entirely sure what it was because that rat's nest that was growing out of his head.

Though the heavy downpour had done wonders to wash it away, there were still traces of mud on his arms from his hunt earlier. The fact that he didn't seem to mind the rain covering him meant that these types of showers were common or the hides he was wearing were sufficient to keep him dry and warm. Despite herself, she just couldn't help but stare at the _filthy_ mess that his dark hair was in. From where she was, she could see small leaves and broken branches hanging from his extremely matted and somewhat muddy hair. He may have been a wild child, but surely he must've followed some form of hygiene! Her imagination kept giving her vivid and highly unpleasant visions of what other disgusting hygiene failures he committed down here. Did he have yellow, rotten, and/or missing teeth? Was his breath so repulsive that could kill? How often did he take baths or showers or the nearest equivalent to clean himself? She knew that he smelled strongly of earth, trees, and grasses from that brief moment he'd held her, so maybe not too often. Did he know better than to wash his hands clean before eating?

Gaze shifting from his hair, Fleur stared down at the magnified image of his muscular arms. Fleur could admit to herself that she found the highly-toned muscle definition of his arms and body as very appealing. The fluidity and grace of his movements as he worked on his project was rather mesmerizing to watch. Most guys she'd ever met at that age were still somewhat lanky and growing slowly accustomed to their increasing body size, making them ever-so-slightly clumsy in their actions. But that didn't seem to be an issue with the hairy boy below her.

Suddenly the boy ceased his movement as he turned his head towards the mother Allosaurus as she approached him. Zooming out slightly on the omnioculars, Fleur watched in fascination as the two different species seemed to somehow communicate with one another. Though she couldn't hear the sounds they were making, she could easily spot their gestures, subtle body movements, and shifting of weight. What were they talking about?

Then, after a few brief moments, Harry dropped to the ground and collected his discarded weapons. That got Fleur's attention immediately as it likely meant that he was finally leaving. And sure enough, after gently rubbing the mother's nuzzle and receiving a small lick on his forearm in return, Harry turned and ran through the maze of roots towards the jungle.

"Harry's moving," Fleur called out as she turned to the brothers and hurriedly grabbed her broomstick. "He's probably going to get that second kill. Let's meet him there and see if my little traps can catch him."

Bill and Charlie glanced at one another but said nothing to contradict her command. It was finally time to get some answers, one way or another.

* * *

(**Author's Note**) Let me guess: a lot of you were expecting Fleur to charge in and attack Harry and Allie on their home turf, like how Gryffindors are commonly shown. Right? Sorry! Fleur wasn't selected for being the Beauxbatons champion for being stupid after all.

I apologize if this chapter has a lot of mistakes in it, I corrected what I could but I don't have any real beta-readers for this story. If anyone's interested, drop me a PM or something.

I have some good news (for me). I seem to have FINALLY gotten myself a job, though I still have to show up for training and be taught the basics of the job, I'm definitely hoping it'll go somewhere. However, this means that my writing time will likely be severely cut back on and delay any new chapter posts in the near-future.

One final note to any aspiring authors, I have recently opened a forum that has a number of story ideas I've recently come up with. If anyone wishes use them, feel free. I only have two things to say about that:  
1) If you choose to write one(some), please tell me so I can read what you come up with as well. Also, I'd be willing to help you in writing them, be it brainstorming or beta-reading.  
2) If you're one of those people whose only goal is mock other people's ideas, _don't_. Laughing and mocking other peoples ideas is normally considered rude and will not be tolerated on **_MY _**forum!


	11. Dancing in the Rain

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 11—Dancing in the Rain_

**12:36pm**

It was while Harry was swinging through the air, heading towards where he'd left the second carcass, that he caught a strange scent in the air. The heavy rain that was currently drenching the jungle was usually strong enough to block all but the strongest of scents. And this particular one was one that he might've missed as well if he hadn't been briefly exposed to it a short ago. Rather than finish his swing and land upon the tree limb that was just in front of him, he held his grip on the vine and swung backwards, hanging almost limply from the vine.

As he was swaying back and forth in the air, he focused his attention upon his sense of smell to better recognize what he'd detected. It was very faint, thanks to the rain mixing up the scents with the trees and earth. Yet there remained a trickle of something that was alien, somewhat fruity, and very salty. It smelled like a very sweet fruit that he vaguely remembered from years ago, what was it called again? Either way, it also carried the very familiar smell of salt, which must've been sweat. It was a mixture that he'd only recently smelt, but from where…? Oh, it was from that pretty girl he caught when he and Allie were…searching for her…nest of eggs…

His eyes widened in sudden realization. _THEY WERE HERE! How long_ had they been here? _Where_ were they? _Why_ were they here? _How many_ were there? Had they tracked him to Allie's _nest?_ These questions and more were running through his mind within a second of his shocking epiphany. There was one thing that he knew he needed to do though.

Climbing back up the vine he was dangling from, he pulled himself up onto the nearest tree limb above him. Crouching down among a group of hanging branches, he hid among their leaves. Drawing his green cloak tightly around himself and calling upon his powers to help conceal him from view, he took off his bow and removed his quiver of arrows and spear from his back. Notching an arrow on the bowstring, he cast his eyes around, searching for the likely hiding places that these people could be using.

A very subtle movement below him drew his attention. Looking down with slow, gradual moves, he spotted the same Megalosaurus that had attacked him from earlier. It was still around? The dinosaur must've been waiting in the area, hoping to catch him unawares when he returned for the second kill. What a persistent beast.

Harry watched carefully as it began stalking forward towards where his kill was waiting. The silent way the Megalosaurus was weaving itself through the brush, keeping low and gently placing its steps on the ground was something that he'd seen Allie do all the time. It was in hunting-mode, likely searching for the source of the salty fruit he too had noticed. As it slowly moved itself forward, he silently drew back his bowstring slightly as he watched the hunter. Though the chances of it actually getting the surprise on the people who've invaded his jungle were slim to none, it should at least help give him some idea as to where they were hiding.

The din of the rainstorm was the only noise that could be heard for the longest time. Neither he nor the Megalosaurus were in any hurry in their slow advance towards the waiting invaders. He watched as the dinosaur silently made its way up and around one particular tree trunk, clinging to it with ease thanks to its large claws and talons. The Megalosaurus stopped for a moment, its head slowly turning shifting in different directions as its nostrils flared, taking in careful breaths to pinpoints its prey's location.

Then he saw a slight movement in the air just around the large tree trunk and out of the Megalosaurus' line of sight. As he trained his eyes onto the spot, he noticed that there was a strange smudge that seemed to be floating gently in the air. It was more of a vague outline of some kind than a 'smudge' actually, but it was still noticeable to his highly-trained eyes. It was the same kind of invisibility trick that he'd seen several different species of hunter dinosaurs use, mostly the thrice-damned feathered ones. It was what made them so deadly as hunters and rivals, and what had driven him to one day use his powers to correct and magnify his declining eyesight and other senses.

But he'd never seen any of those dinosaurs ever be capable of flight, aside from the obvious ones and they didn't need invisibility to survive. In fact, the only creatures he'd ever seen fly that obviously shouldn't have been able to were those people back in the dark forest above. That must mean…that smudge was one of them! Lining up the smudge with his arrow, he quickly estimated the wind and rain, distance, and approximate impact area. Tilting the arrow up slightly, he drew back his bowstring just enough to be deadly for the person he was aiming at.

Just as he was about to release the arrow, something stayed his hand. His glare didn't waver in the least as he watched the smudge drift slowly, almost lazily through the air and around the tree trunk. Harry just couldn't understand it; _why_ were they here? He could guess that they'd followed his and Allie's trail back to the river system. And he could guess that they likely would find this place very interesting for countless reasons. But that didn't answer the primary question of just _why_ they would follow him at all! Why? The curiosity was burning him up inside, and for the sake of his jungle he just _had_ to know the answer to that very important question!

The Megalosaurus suddenly leaping out of its hiding spot and tackling the floating smudge quickly drew him out of his thoughts as he heard a female voice cry out in pain and surprise. As he watched, the smudge that had been tackled to the ground quickly changed itself to reveal a head of yellow hair and ridiculously bright pink clothes that were an eyesore against all of the natural greens and browns of the jungle. Between her body and that of the Megalosaurus was the snapped remains of some kind of large stick, probably the same thing that those earlier humans had used to fly in the air in the dark forest.

For a split second, he just stared at the stupidity of the girl. Didn't she know better than to wear such _bright_ and _obvious_ colors in an environment such as _this?_ Shaking his head to clear his mind of the distracting thoughts, he quickly holstered his bow and arrows as he leapt away from his hiding place to find a more advantageous spot to watch and possibly attack from.

There was a pair of loud shouts as two more forms materialized into existence. These two forms were a pair of men dressed in bright red and yellow, with equally bright red hair. They were floating around in the air on the same things that those earlier men had been and were pointing small sticks at the dinosaur who was in the process of holding the wildly struggling girl down so as to take a proper bite out of. A pair of bright lights exploded from the ends of the sticks they were carrying. One of the lights struck the ground and turned the dirt to ice. The second light hit the Megalosaurus on its thigh, knocking it stumbling to the side, which caused it to slip on the slick ground.

The girl quickly scrambled away as best she could now that the massive bulk of the hunter wasn't pressing her down. However, her very bright pink shirt was shredded and pulled open from a trio of very deep slash wounds across her chest. And she was cradling her right arm, which was dangling at an unnatural angle with multiple bleeding bite marks on it. She of course didn't make it very far before the Megalosaurus managed to get back onto its feet, digging its talons into the ice for stability.

As the dinosaur rushed over to the girl and once again pressed her against the ground with its feet, it turned its attention to the circling forms of the men in the air. The dinosaur let out a loud roar of challenge as it purposely dug its talons into the soft flesh of the girl's back, causing her to scream out in agony in response. One of the redheads began swinging its stick around in almost random patterns. But as he was doing this, a large block of dark rock materialized in the air before him. With a subtle gesture of the stick, the redhead sent the stone block rocketing towards the dinosaur.

Settling into his new hiding place which was just above the fight that was taking place, Harry was able to watch as the Megalosaurus crouched low to the ground and over the injured girl as it let the stone block pass harmlessly over it. Then he saw the dinosaur's sides begin swelling from the inside as it gathered a high amount of power within its lungs. Eyes widening, he quickly covered his ears as he ducked around to hide behind the trunk of the tree with not even a second to spare.

An ear-shattering scream tore through the jungle air. The high-pitch and high-intensity sound waves sent tremors and vibrations through everything that was within their area of effect and the water that was covering everything thanks to the rainstorm certainly didn't help matters. Even from his hiding spot, he could feel the tremors of sound racing through his body as he kept his hands painfully clamped over his screaming ears. He was lucky that he at least had some small form of protection against the noise. And thankfully, this form of attack was a short one and it soon stopped, much to the relief of the victims.

Using a generous amount of healing power to massage his aching ears, Harry peeked out from around the tree to see what had happened to the others. The two redheads had fallen out of the air and landed in painfully awkward positions in the dirt. There were steady streams of blood running out of their ears and they were crying out in pain as they clenched the sides of their heads. In a weird twist of luck, only the girl at the Megalosaurus' feet wasn't injured by the attack because it hadn't been aiming at her. Not that it mattered, she was helpless and now her friends were rendered useless. The dinosaur could now eat at its leisure.

As he watched the Megalosaurus turn its attention to the girl under it with its maw opened and willing, he felt a serious conflict arise within himself. Should he just let nature run its course here and let the dinosaur have its meal? After all, if they didn't return to their world, then there should be no one else who would follow after them and find this jungle paradise, right? It would be better for everyone if this place was never discovered by the cruel, selfish humans above. Yet he couldn't help but notice that the girl did seem…_different_ than any of the limited few other girls he'd ever seen in his nightmares (the most prominent being a spiteful, stick-thin woman who used to live with him in his old home). What would he or the jungle have to gain by him helping these three strangers survive?

However, his decision was made for him when he saw the look of absolute terror and pain on the girl's face as the massive jaws descended towards her.

Quickly drawing back the bowstring, he let loose an arrow. The deadly projectile silently flew through the air and buried itself partway into the Megalosaurus' side. The large dinosaur quickly recoiled with a roar of pain and surprise, stepping off the girl and backing away slightly as it turned to examine the unexpected wound. As it was doing this, Harry slung his bow back into his shoulder sheath and leapt out of his hiding spot. Grabbing a vine as he fell, he let loose his own roar as he turned his dive into a swing and kicked the dinosaur mightily in its wounded side. Though the blow itself wasn't all that strong, it was just enough to send the Megalosaurus sliding haphazardly across the still-present ice and away from the injured girl. Flipping expertly off the vine as it swung backwards from the attack, he landed in a protective crouch on the ice just in front of her.

Abandoning trying to get the arrow out of its side as it faced its newest threat, the Megalosaurus glared and roared at him. At its hips, the dinosaur was even taller than he was and more than three times as long. But for all that bulk, it was relatively light and not even half as large as Allie would be when she reached full maturity. It pawed the earth beneath it in a show of extreme anger and annoyance. Harry just let out his own warning growl as he pulled out a pair of his dinosaur teeth daggers. Circling one another, the two made several false lunges as they sought to find the right angle to attack. As they were moving, Harry noticed that the ice beneath his feet was quickly melting away thanks to the high humidity. In another couple of moments, it'd just be yet another patch of muddy earth. That was when an idea came to his mind.

With a loud, challenging roar of his own, he stomped one of his feet and glared at the monster before him. The Megalosaurus took the bait and charged forward at the same time he did, believing that its superior bulk and teeth would be its advantage. Rushing forward, Harry feinted jumping into the air so he could land on its backside. The Megalosaurus quickly raised its jaws in preparation of catching him in the air as they neared each other. Instead, Harry dropped to his knees and arched his back low against the ground, sliding on the fast-melting ice between the creature's massive strides. Quick as a flash, he scrambled back onto his feet and leapt upon the unprotected back of the surprised dinosaur. Holding himself as securely as he could on the dinosaur's soaked hide, Harry let out a roar and began slamming his daggers into the Megalosaurus' back like engine pistons, trying to sever its spinal cord.

The Megalosaurus roared and reared in pain at the repeated stabs in its back. Swinging its head back, it tried to bite off the little parasite that had latched itself onto it, but to no avail. Then it started swinging and jerking its body from side to side, stomping and jumping erratically as it tried to throw him off in any way it could.

Despite himself and the danger he was in, Harry couldn't stop himself letting out loud cheers of exhilaration as he fought to keep himself balanced on the dinosaur's back. This was just _too_ fun! But then a particularly strong jerk to one side nearly sent him tumbling to the ground. And he would've fallen if not for the claws of his left gauntlet digging into and slashing the dinosaur's side before finding a strong anchoring point on one of the Megalosaurus' ribs.

Quickly unlatching himself from the dinosaur's side, Harry yanked out his teeth daggers and leapt high into the air. Sheathing his daggers, he grabbed his spear and brought it point down as he descended back down upon the Megalosaurus. With one stab into the base of the dinosaur's skull, the fight was over as the Megalosaurus collapsed lifelessly upon the muddy earth. The large spearhead had finally cut the spine when the smaller daggers hadn't been able to.

As the corpse of the Megalosaurus settled to the ground limply, he yanked his spear out and leapt free. Eyes quickly scanning the forest to ensure that there were no new hunters who'd been attracted by all of the noise, Harry quickly hurried over to the bleeding form of the girl. One glance at the two men told him that they were going to be just fine. In fact, one of them was already waving his little stick around his bleeding ears and muttering quietly, channeling his power as he did so.

Setting his spear aside, he crouched down and tentatively examined the wounds of the girl. The slashes on her chest were even worse than he'd first assumed. Her entire chest area and what remained of her clothes were soaked and covered in a large amount of blood. One of the peculiar mounds on her chest was cut open, revealing a few of her broken ribs beneath the flesh. Her face was ghostly pale and it seemed that she was just barely conscious, and alive, if the continued bleeding of her wounds was any indication. With wounds this bad, she'd be dead within moments.

Cleaning his hands of any dirt or contaminant from his fight with a soft flex of his power, Harry returned and gently rested his hands over her torn flesh. Letting out a slow sigh of concentration, he pulled at his powers, channeling them through his hands and into the girl's body. At first it didn't seem to be doing much, but as the power began to interact with the girl's own, the healing process began to slowly accelerate. He first focused on the broken ribs and any punctured organs she might have. These types of wounds were always the hardest to heal, unlike the more 'flesh wounds' of torn or mutilated muscle and skin. No matter how many times he healed Allie or any other creature, it was always the same: twice as difficult as it would've been to heal himself of the same wounds.

As he poured more and more power into his work, Harry felt his eyes begin to slightly close on their own accords. Shaking off the minor drowsiness, he focused back upon what he was doing. He watched mutely as the slash marks on the girl's chest began to close, leaving behind a trio of ugly scars that would be with her for the rest of her life. As his hands were tracing the closing injuries across her body, his hand came into contact with the strange mound that had been injured. He may not have been part of the human world for a very long time and missed out on his sexual education lessons, but he still knew enough to know that those mounds were among several things that made her a girl. And he couldn't stop himself from curiously feeling and massaging the mound as its wounds healed. The strange mound with its dark little nub felt rather firm but was also surprisingly soft and smooth now that it had been healed.

Shaking his head to stay focused, he turned his attention to her bitten and broken arm. Taking her arm into his hands, he gently knelt down on her chest to keep her stationary for what was coming next. But before he could reset the bones back into place, he noticed the two redheads finally standing. They managed to walk over towards him, stopping within only a few paces away with their little sticks pointed towards him. Their faces were carefully guarded as they watched him with critical eyes. Growling at them, Harry shifted his position slightly in case they might attack him.

One of the redheads, the one without the long hair and tooth hanging from its ear, seemed to quickly notice and understand what he was preparing to do. He caught the other redhead's shoulder and quietly said something to him. After a moment's hesitation, they lowered their sticks and took a few steps backwards, giving him a bit more cushioning room to feel more comfortable. Casting one last glaring glance in their direction, he returned his attention to the girl, noticing that she seemed to be coming back to herself.

Once again repositioning himself onto top of her, he took her twisted arm. The girl managed to draw in a gasp as she finally understood what was going to happen to her within the next few moments. Her eyes were wide and pleading as she let out a few whimpers of fear. He forcefully ignored them and sprung into action. With a sharp twist, he realigned her broken arm back into its proper place, earning himself a pair of ringing eardrums as she screamed out her misery for all to hear. Focusing again on his power, he channeled the healing warmth through his hands and into her arm. The bones slowly mended themselves back together, the shards that had been broken off were drawn out of her blood and veins through the bite marks in her arm, and then the flesh finally closed itself up. All that was left of the terrible wound was a series of scars in the shape of the Megalosaurus' jaws.

Satisfied with his work, Harry finally let her up, grabbed his spear, and drew back away from her as the two redheads approached her. He watched as the men quickly drew forward to examine her healed wounds. Of course, the girl didn't let them get too close after she noticed her present state of undress. Somehow, despite her severe loss of blood, her ghostly pale face had turned very, _very_ red for some reason. The two men began talking to her, likely explaining just who and how she had been healed. At some point during the conversation, she turned and angrily glared at him as she tightened her grip over her chest area and the mounds she had. He just tilted his head slightly in confusion at the glare she was giving him. Did she not like it when people could see those things?

Shaking the rainwater off his face, he blinked as he watched one of the men reach into their clothes and extract a small object from one of the pockets. He set the object on the ground and waved his stick over it with a few muttered words and small flex of his power. Drawing back slightly as he reached for a pair of his daggers, Harry watched warily as the object suddenly grew to several times its original size. By the time the object had stopped growing, he had recognized it to be some kind of large container. The redheads and the girl (to a certain degree at least) seemed quite amused at his reaction to the object's growth, if the smiles and strange laughter were anything to go by. One of the redheads reached into the container and pulled out a new shirt of equal unnaturally bright colors of purple and blue.

Growling at the eyesore, he looked away in contempt, earning a trio of stares from the strangers. How could these people be so _stupid_ to wear such glaringly obvious colors in a jungle like this? Snorting dismissively at them, he stalked over to the Megalosaurus corpse when he decided that they were of no further interest to him. Walking around to its side, he sighed in annoyance as he spotted the broken shaft of his arrow sticking out of its side. There went yet another one of his arrows down the abyss.

Yanking the broken shaft out of the corpse, Harry stuck the arrowhead into his leather pouch as he hesitantly pulled out a dagger. This one dinosaur would be enough to feed him, Allie, and the hatchlings for at least two days if they were lucky. Just as he was preparing to stab his dagger into the underbelly of the dinosaur, a loud voice called for his attention. It was the pretty girl, now wearing that hideous purple and blue monstrosity over her chest. She was beckoning to him to approach her, her hands empty of her own little stick. The two redheads were standing back, clearly letting the girl be the leader in whatever they were trying to do. Harry watched her with a blank expression on his face while warily moving into a subtle defensive position.

After a few attempts by her to get him to understand, one of the redheads called out to her, probably a suggestion of some kind. When she looked back at the redhead in question, she paused for a moment before smiling at him. Then, turning her attention back upon the boy before her, she began to focusing her powers. He watched in curiosity as she focused her power into a familiar alluring pattern. He was suddenly struck by just how beautiful she actually was. She was so incredibly attractive that it was almost unnatural!

In his peripheral vision, he could see that the aura was also affecting her companions. The longhaired one with a tooth hanging from his ear was blushing slightly and averting his gaze to the side. But at the same time, the other redhead was leering strangely at the girl's shapely back as he examined her. Of course, the blushing redhead quickly noticed this and smacked the back of his partner's head, probably to break him out of his perverse thoughts.

Blinking, he suddenly realized just why that allure was so familiar, as he'd seen before. She was using her power in a manner that he'd seen Maiasaurs use when they were in mating season, trying to show off themselves to prospective mates. The sad problem with this little power was that they had as much likelihood of attracting hunters as they did mates, he had actually killed a few himself thanks to that allure.

Letting out a growling snort as he shook his head to clear it of the allure she was giving off, Harry turned and returned his attention to the carcass beside him. If that girl was trying to get his attention for something like that, then she might as well just leave because he had learned to ignore such allures over the years. Not out of desire, but necessity for his survival. Because he was focusing on the carcass, he didn't notice the surprised stares he earned due to the ease of him breaking the Veela charm. He really wanted to bring the entire carcass back to the nest, instead of making multiple trips and leaving it unguarded against scavengers. With his power enhancing his strength, he should be able to make the journey but he'd be sore for the rest of the day, not to mention he was already tired from having to heal that girl behind him.

Sighing in resignation, he stood up and moved to a more convenient location to pick up his family's dinner. Harry ignored the stuttering attempts of the girl as she once again tried to get his attention. Instead he focused on his power as he crouched down, picked up the carcass onto his backside, and stood up. The Megalosaurus may have been larger than he was, but it was still light for its size. In fact, it must've weighed about twice as much as he was normally accustomed to carrying around these days. But a little extra power to his limbs and he was able to compensate for it. His small audience stared at him in wide-eyed shock at his obvious body strength but he ignored them as he began the long trek back to the nest.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**3:53pm**

"When I envisioned how this little encounter would've played out, I never thought it would be anything like this," Charlie admitted to Bill from where he, his brother, and Ms. Delacour were quietly following behind the slow-walking figure of Harry.

"That makes two of us," Bill agreed quietly.

For the past three hours, the three of them had been following Harry on foot as he slowly made his way back to the giant fruit tree and the nest. Fleur seemed to have come to her wit's end when she realized that not only had Harry jumped in and saved them from an unexpected (and undetected) dinosaur attack, healed her life-threatening injuries, and then promptly ignored her and her powerful Veela charms. The fact that she was also suffering from blood loss might've also had something to do with it. It was also because of that, she was floating along with them on one of the two remaining Cleansweeps. It was the closest they could get to letting her body rest and recover.

Bill couldn't exactly blame her for not knowing what to do next, given all that had just happened and everything else that they'd already been through just to find that accursed golden egg. She had been moments away from dying, only to be brought back by the one person she had likely assumed would've sooner attacked her than saved her. The fact that he had somehow used his magic to heal her in a manner that even most of the best trained Healers in the world wouldn't have been able to only surprised her and the brothers more. That type of wandless magic required insanely high amounts of power and near-perfect control of that power, or so the ancient philosophers had said.

The rainstorm had subsided about an hour ago, much to the relief of the trio of strangers. And since then, the group had been walking through the muddy earth of the forest, which was thankfully clear of any unwanted dinosaurs. With the sun beginning to set in the distance and filling the jungle will increasingly deepening shadows, they had finally reached the cliff that marked the inner-most territory of the Allosaurus' hunting grounds. Harry seemed hell-bent on ignoring the trio following him. Fleur was trying to figure out what to do next and had mostly just followed behind Harry in an effort to help her get her thoughts straight.

Bill and Charlie, being nothing more than underlings for this mission, just followed their team leader in relative silence as they observed their surroundings and Harry (discreetly of course). Now that he wasn't moving in erratic sprints and leaps through the trees or being observed from a distance with the omnioculars, they were able to finally see just how many different daggers and weapons Harry had on his person. Aside from the spear, bow, and about thirty arrows in the sheath he wore on his back, he also had acquired a clawed gauntlet and he wore twenty different sized daggers over his body. There were eight daggers hanging from his hips (four on each), six protruding over his shoulders (three over each shoulder), four hanging across his torso (two on each side), and two hanging from the leather strap of the pouch. And there was no telling what he had hidden inside that pouch draped over his side. Though, given the fight they'd just seen him in, having only that many weapons seemed like a modest amount to carry around in their opinions.

A sudden loud shriek from Harry snapped all of his followers out of their thoughts as he reached the edge of the cliff before him. He followed the shriek with a series of loud chirping barks and finishing with a low wail. He waited patiently for an answering call from his Allosaurus before smiling and happily dropping the dead weight off his shoulders and knocking it gracelessly over the edge of the cliff. As he was shaking his shoulders and starting to do some basic stretches to help soothe his screaming muscles, a low growl attracted his and the brothers attention. Fleur, having climbed off the broom she'd been riding on, was once again glaring Harry with a clenched jaw, hands in fists.

While the brothers stared at her in confusion, Harry merely arched an eyebrow at her growl. Then his eyes narrowed slightly as he began remembering something. Then as soon as it hit him, a large grin spread across his face, revealing two rows of surprisingly clean and white teeth. The large, teasing grin he was shooting Fleur looked very strange on his heavily-scarred face. Then, as quickly as the grin appeared, it vanished as he turned to fully face his followers with a glare of his own, hands drifting slightly to his daggers.

"I don't think he wants us enter his home," Charlie observed levelly, fingering his own wand just in case.

"Yes, right now might be the best time to tell him just what we're after here," Bill agreed, glancing at Fleur who hadn't taken her gaze off the boy since she'd started following him.

Remembering her earlier failure at getting Harry to answer her, Fleur just continued to stare at the boy in front of her. She had seen how his eyes had snapped between Bill and Charlie, watching their faces with a look of extreme concentration, as though he was trying to remember something. She had also seen the beginning portion of the fight between him and the carcass he'd been carrying, how he had been able plan ahead and used the environment to his advantage. He was very smart. But if he couldn't understand words, maybe he could understand images and gestures better?

Slowly drawing her wand, she gestured towards herself with her free hand. Seeing Harry watching her as she gently tapped herself on the chest, she held out her wand and muttered a quiet phrase. She ignored Harry drawing back slightly as a ghostly image of a golden egg floated out of her wand and hovered before her. Harry watched as the image appeared with wide eyes as his mouth fell open slightly in surprise. Because she was carefully watching those incredibly bright green eyes, she was able to spot it when there was a flash of recognition that passed over them as he stared at the floating image. Reaching out with her free hand, she made as though to grab the egg and pulled it back against her, seemingly cradling it against her body before dissolving the image.

Harry's eyes widened just a bit further as he started to grasp just what Fleur was hinting towards. But then they narrowed as a quiet growl escaped his snarling lips. He turned and started to pace, moodily growling to himself as he glanced back towards her every so often.

"Good idea, Ms. Delacour," Bill said, looking like he wanted to smile at her but wasn't sure if now was appropriate, given what Harry's response was. "He seems to understand what you want now. But I wonder why he's in such a bad mood now." He paused for a second before turning to her with a slight grin. "Although, maybe you should stop growling at him or you might start giving him the wrong impression."

That statement earned him a sharp glare from Fleur at the insinuation.

"Maybe he doesn't know where they lost the egg?" Charlie suggested. "Or maybe he tried to make an omelet out of it and accidentally broke it?"

"Don't even _joke_ about that!" Fleur snapped, annoyed that he'd voiced one of her own fears. "But I think he does know where it is. He responded too…passionately to not know."

"Which must mean that it's likely somewhere even _he_ doesn't wanna go to," Bill said with a clear note of uncertainty and fear in his voice.

Finally Harry stopped pacing and turned back towards them. He walked forward slightly and then pointed off into the distance in a seemingly random direction with a deep glare on his face. One glance at where he was pointing quickly told all three exactly what he was thinking. He was pointing towards the giant cavern's wall, and likely the rivers they followed to find this underground jungle. He wanted them to leave, probably without the egg.

Turning her attention back to Harry, Fleur glared back at him and resolutely shook her head no. The two of them began throwing increasingly more dangerous glares and gestures towards one another. Charlie and Bill watched with growing unease as Harry's hands started drifting back towards the hilts of his daggers with his magical aura rapidly rising with heightening levels of aggressiveness. Fleur matched his growing physical and magical aggressions with her own as she was beginning to raise her wand in more threatening manners.

Just before all hell broke loose, Harry took a deep breath and visibly gathered himself, reining in his temper and violent aura. As he was doing this, Bill's eyes widened in slight surprise as his magical awareness tingled. Whereas before, Harry's magic had been on the verge of lashing out in what would've caused a burst of accidental magic, it had suddenly froze and withdrew back inside the boy. The boy's magic was so completely suppressed and controlled that Bill might've mistaken him to be a Muggle. Was that how he'd managed to remain hidden from the Wizarding World for so long?

Harry holding up his hands in front of his chest, with a look of deep concentration on his face quickly drew Bill out of his wondering thoughts. They watched in curiosity as Harry focused his magic into his hands and then formed a wavering image of a golden egg floating between his fingers. The three magic-users all gasped at the blatant show of wandless magic, not that Harry noticed as he continued to focus his attention onto the image. Then as more power continued to gather into the image, it began to becoming more corporal and solid. With one final surge, the image had coalesced and dropped lightly into Harry's waiting hands.

Smirking lightly at his accomplishment, Harry looked up and spotted their dumbfounded stares as they stared at the image he'd created. For just a second, he tilted his head slightly in confusion at their expressions. What was with them? They had power like him, right. So why were they staring at him like that? Couldn't they do what he could? Shaking his head to clear it, he held out the conjured egg for Fleur to take.

"Bloody hell," Charlie muttered, eyes wide. "Did he just conjure an egg without a wand?"

Still somewhat dumbfounded, the Veela took the offered egg and stared at it. Then, finally overcoming her surprise and disbelief, she quickly examined it with a critical eye. The egg looked was remarkably well shaped and proportioned. With just a small few scans with her wand, she said, "It's real. This is a real egg!"

"Does it open?" Bill asked, his surprise quickly changing to practicality. "Unless it's somehow the real thing, it won't work."

Looking over at Bill, Fleur stared at him for a second before she answered, "I said it was a real egg. I didn't say it was _my_ egg."

Before Bill could reply, she returned her attention back to Harry. Shaking her head in denial at his clever trick, she held out the egg to return it to him. The boy stared at her with a disappointed pout as he took his creation back and tossed it carelessly over his shoulder and down the cliff. For a long following moment, the two of them just stared at one another in a silent contest of wills. Fleur would not leave until she got her egg, and Harry knew that now. It was a contest of who's will would crack first.

Then, with deep and wary sigh, Harry hung his head in defeat. Fleur, recognizing his retreat, smiled serenely as her Veela aura flared up to match her triumphant demeanor. Harry just gave her a deadpan stare in return. With a deep grimace, he reached forward and grasped Fleur's hand gently. Turning, he led her to the side along the edge of the cliff, his scowl never leaving his face as he did so.

"I think we just got invited," Charlie said to Bill when he noticed Harry pulling Fleur off to the side.

* * *

(**Author's Note**) A deep nod of thanks to **Addictedforlife** for reviewing this chapter! Man, I'd forgotten how incredibly helpful a beta-reader can be, especially when they're actually interested in my story. Thank you so much for this and helping iron out a few of my weaker ideas and suggesting good replacements for others.


	12. First Words

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 12—First Words_

**26 November 1994  
Saturday, 4:08pm  
Shrieking Shack**

The roars, shrieks, and bellows of numerous beasts echoed through the dungeons like a rolling thunder over the horizon. They sent faint tremors and vibrations through the underground halls and up through the creaky floorboards. The noise was rather unsettling even for him, a Dark wizard who was reputed to enjoying such grotesque sounds, usually from his victims. The sounds were so loud that the entire area surrounding the Shrieking Shack had been carefully warded with several layers of silencing charms so as to attract as little attention from the people of Hogsmeade as possible.

Currently, one of those creatures could be heard above all the others, screaming in agony. If his memory served him correctly, he recognized the shriek as that belonging to an Acromantula; probably the very same specimen that he had captured earlier this week. Why did his benefactor insist on collecting so many of those worthless…things?

Shaking his head to rid it of such unnecessary thoughts, the French-born wizard refocused his attention upon other matters. His name was Aleron d'Orlean, and he was commonly known as France's most notorious mercenary. He would do _any_ high-paying job, no matter the danger or political repercussions involved. He had easily the most impressive track record of any of his fellow mercenaries, averaging nine successful missions of ten. If his information was as accurate as it usually was, then he also had at least a dozen different bounties on his head for several assassinations of high-level French ministry officials. It was for these bounties that he had currently taken up refuge in Wizarding England.

However, no matter just how high paying his benefactor and his inbred Pureblood minions were, Aleron would've much preferred facing those potential dangers. His current employer was a mere brat masquerading as the new figurehead of the English Pureblood regime. Yet this unique position had also seemed to give the kid some delusions of grandeur for himself. He demanded that all his underlings, even d'Orlean, treat him as they would the previous Dark Lord himself; something that many of the Purebloods seemed to strangely condone as well. The brat had a sick love of torturing his underlings over the smallest of offenses or mistakes, which was why d'Orlean felt that he would've been better off back in France. But there was no denying that Delamort's raw skill and almost unrivaled power had indeed garnered him great respect on their own. And now, for whatever reason, the dangerous lad seemed to have taken an interest in that new beast that had shown up only a few days ago.

The sound of a door suddenly opening snapped d'Orlean out of his thoughts. Upon seeing Lord Delamort exiting the dungeons, he quickly dropped into a kneeling position and patiently waited for his benefactor to finish sealing and locking the hidden passageway. Stepping away from the now-secured passage, Delamort faced his most formidable underling as he idly hid the Egyptian scepter within his robes. The scepter was a closely guarded secret that Delamort had warned d'Orlean against spreading, under the threat of torture and death. Though the mercenary was a filthy Mudblood, his skills were such that even both portions of Tom Riddle had been suitably impressed by him. If not for his love of gold, Aleron d'Orlean could've made for a very dangerous adversary if he had decided to start his own Dark campaign while in France.

"What is it, Aleron?" he demanded as he turned and began walking towards the stairwell out of the renovated cellar. D'Orlean was fast to climb to his feet and follow him at a respectful pace and distance.

"My lord, I have just returned from that scouting mission you'd ordered yesterday," D'Orlean answered quickly, with just a hint of a French accent. "My team had been able to locate the dragon handlers that pursued the kid into the forest. They did indeed fight with the kid after he ambushed them partway into the forest. However, we were unable to fully follow the tracks he left afterwards. The French Aurors were right behind us, they would have soon found out about us if we didn't leave immediately."

Stopping at the foot of the stairs, Delamort turned and glared at d'Orlean. This was not the information he was looking for! However, d'Orlean's quick mind and eyes had quickly deciphered what that glare was promising and instantly continued. "We didn't have the time to do a thorough investigation, my lord. The French Ministry had been very close on our trails. I had just been able to Obliviate our presence from the surviving handlers before we had to flee. However, I did manage to extract a memory of their encounter with the boy from one of them." He accented this point by withdrawing and displaying a small glass vial that contained the floating mass of one of the dragon handlers' memory.

Taking the vial from the man, Delamort eyed it for a moment before returning his gaze upon the French Mudblood. Though the handsome lad was still glaring at him with that suspicious gaze, there was a noticeable lack of killing intent mixed in; meaning that he had somehow just managed to dodge a painful Crucio. Giving the contained memory one last glance, the boy slipped it into one of his pockets before returning to walk back up the stairs and into his personal headquarters. D'Orlean could only assume that the aspiring Dark Lord was planning on carefully examining the memory later that evening.

With a breath a relief, he followed the young Dark Lord upstairs without another word.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**4:10pm  
Jungle cavern**

With a shriek of terror, Fleur found herself in a freefall of unimaginable height. The cliff she'd been knocked off of was rushing past her at high speeds. The sensation of the fall sent her heart up her throat, pulse racing and adrenaline gushing by liters through her bloodstream. The fear instantly froze her mind and overrode all common sense. All that she was capable of thinking for those eternal seconds was the simple fact _that—she—was—__**falling!**_

However, her shriek of terror was abruptly silenced, only to be replaced by a loud splash of surprisingly warm water. Quickly snapping back to her senses in need of air, Fleur reoriented herself and began swimming back to the surface. Breaking the surface and taking a deep breath, she took a look at her new surroundings.

Fleur spotted the cliff that the little _brat_ had pushed her from. To her surprise, from down here, it wasn't nearly as high as she'd first assumed it had been. It was quickly shrinking away, though, as the strong river current pulled her downstream. Above her, she could see Bill and Charlie both on their brooms and hovering over the river surface a short distance away. They must've mounted the brooms and tried to catch Fleur before she submerged, without success. But where was the _little brat_ who'd pushed her in the first place? She was going to beat the _shit_ out of him for this!

A chuckle from behind her quickly had her shifting around and spotting the dinosaur brat treading water a short distance away from her. His matted hair was now heavily soaked and hung limply in from his head in trailing spikes. And there was a large silly grin on his face as he watched her glare in his direction. Then he turned his attention to swimming towards the river bank, ignoring Fleur's angry growls.

"Ms. Delacour, take my hand," Charlie said as he hovered above her and reached down towards her.

Too angry and embarrassed to speak, Fleur simply nodded and grabbed his hand, allowing him to tow her towards the shore. Once her feet were on somewhat stable ground, she let go and hurried to shore on her own. With a scowl, she noticed that her pristine shirt and shorts were laden with mud and river muck. The filth dulled the bright colors considerably. On top of that, the water also caused her clothes to cling to her shapely body like a second skin.

Glancing up, she noticed that the brothers were at least trying to be respectful and not stare at her very visible assets. Harry, on the other hand, had no such compunctions and was staring right at them with clear and obvious interest. A fiery glare lit up Fleur's face as she was once again reminded that he had apparently groped her when she was unconscious, supposedly in order to heal her. Lifting a hand to shield herself slightly from his gaze, she hurriedly waved her wand in an effort to dry herself of the water. As an afterthought, she also changed her clothes to a neutral brown coloring, similar to Harry's leather shirt. Strangely, this earned her a smile of approval from the boy.

Making their way into the tangled maze of roots, the three wizardly explorers closely followed after their reluctant guide. They had to move rather slowly due to the deepening darkness of night. Although they could've used their wands to light the way, none of them felt that that would be a particularly safe or smart idea since they didn't know what Harry's reaction might be (or his pet Allosaurus for that matter).

"Ms. Delacour," Bill said after a few moments, attracting everyone's attentions. "I think it would be in our best interests to turn in for the night earlier than usual."

"Why?" she demanded. "We're so close to finding out what happened to my egg and—"

"You're still recovering," Bill interrupted, gazing at her pointedly as they continued moving through the roots. "Though the kid may have somehow healed your wounds, I doubt he was able to get your body to replace such a large amount of lost blood. You'll need time and rest to it all back."

Snapping to face the elder Weasley with a fiery glare, Fleur barely controlled herself from outright yelling in his face. "_No!_ I will _not_ waste any more time than I _absolutely_ _must!_ We will spend the _night_ here but we're _continuing_ tomorrow to find my egg. _And that's __**final!**_" Though she was indeed vehement about leaving the jungle, the majority of her anger was still focused upon her tarnished beauty and pride.

"Ms. Delacour, please don't be difficult," Bill interrupted again, this time sounding reasonably annoyed. "You must've lost at least a liter of blood, any more and you either could've died or been unable to move properly. No one can regain that amount overnight without some kind of blood restorative potion, which I unfortunately didn't stock up on. I suggest we take tomorrow off and—"

"I feel just fine, Mr. Weasley," Fleur snapped, angry at once again being reminded of what happened to her earlier. Though she was by no means a vain person, Fleur had taken a great deal of pride in her natural beauty; a right that few women could boast of. Now that beauty had just been tarnished. "Thank you for your _concern_, but I feel _more than_ capable of finishing my Task!"

With an angry glare, Fleur turned around and marched up towards Harry, who had stopped to watch the confrontation with a scrutinizing gaze. Perhaps it was Fleur's imagination, but she could've sworn she felt Bill's angry eyes following her for a moment. But she shook that feeling off as she refocused on the path that Harry was showing her. The rest of the journey through the roots maze passed in relative silence.

When they reached a particularly large root at the base of the great fruit tree, Harry eagerly leapt atop it and crouched down on all fours as he let out a welcoming bark. A series of excited chirps and barks soon followed, mostly like from the hatchlings down below. The obvious excitement at his return quickly drew a happy smile across Harry's face as he leaned forward and swayed slightly to the sides. Then he abruptly jumped down to greet the hatchlings in person.

Much more cautious, Fleur awkwardly climbed up the root after him and looked over its edge. Down below was the nest that they'd found earlier, minus the mother Allosaurus. Harry was playfully rolling about the ground with the hatchlings jumping up on him and trying to hold him down, as though he were a struggling prey. For some reason, this simple game drew a soft, small smile across the Veela's face as she watched him. He may and may not have seemed to be many things, but a loving and playful 'uncle' or 'brother' was certainly one of the things that he was.

Beside her, the Weasley brothers climbed up and looked down at the scene below them. After a passing glance at Bill and Fleur, Charlie swung his legs over the root and idly slid down its surface to the ground below. Almost instantly a pair of the hatchlings noticed his arrival. The two of them moved away from the rest of the group and cautiously approached him, cocking their heads to and fro as they scrutinized him carefully.

"What are you doing, Charlie?" Bill asked, his voice laced with annoyance and anxiety.

"Just saying hello," Charlie answered lightly as he crouched down on the ground and held out one of his hands towards the two hatchlings.

Rather than approach him to investigate like most other animals would've, the pair of hatchlings backed up slightly. One of them arched his head back and let out a loud squeaking chirp, something that instantly drew the rest of its siblings and Harry's attentions. Quickly abandoning Harry, all five hatchlings formed a line next to one another and they slowly moved to inspect the strange, smelly creature that looked partly similar to the fun thing that they'd been playing with. Behind them, Harry had ever so subtly moved his hands towards a pair of his daggers as he closely watched Charlie's actions.

Charlie just smiled playfully as he knelt down on the ground fully and made some chirping sounds. The sounds were the same ones he'd been instructed to use whenever he was approaching a newly hatched dragon. The sounds were supposedly among the few that could calm a scared hatchling down enough for a handler to reach it and try to help it.

It seemed to be helping for these dinosaur hatchlings as well. They started jostling with each other and making excited chirps and squeaks of their own. It also caused Harry to slightly relax as he carefully inspected Charlie's face for any signs of deception. Then, as one, the hatchlings pounced on Charlie, knocking him backward and pulling at various pieces of his clothing.

"Ow!" he exclaimed as one of the hatchlings bit down on his left hand, not hard enough to puncture the skin with their still soft teeth but enough to be painful. Copying what he'd seen Harry do earlier, Charlie freed his hand and lightly swatted the biting hatchling on the snout with a quiet growl of warning. He wasn't able to see the hatchling's reaction as his attention was drawn away by an earsplitting roar.

The roar scared Bill and Fleur enough to send them toppling over the rain-slicked root they were still standing on and falling into a pile of limbs near Charlie and the hatchlings. Bill only had enough time to realize that he had a great view of Fleur's shapely ass for a few moments time as she shuffled around below him. But then his crotch erupted in agony. Fleur, having recovered quicker than Bill, had screamed and lashed out on reflex, hitting the tender spot that no man likes to be hit. With his collapsing in pain atop her, she roughly pushed him aside. Before she had a chance to yell at Bill about being a pervert, another roar filled the air, accompanied by a splashing noise, trembling earth, and loud barks and howls.

Quickly facing the racket, Fleur reflexively started backing away as she spotted the imposing figure of the mother Allosaurus rushing towards her and Bill.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**4:40pm  
Forbidden Forest**

"Well, that's something you don't see every day," Sirius commented lamely as he watched from the treetops as the showdown between the two groups took place.

He and his remaining Marauder friend Remus were hovering in the air a fair distance away from the bickering group of Aurors and Centaurs. The two groups had been bickering for the better part of seven hours. There had been moments where they had come very close to having the argument break into an actual fight. The Aurors were absolutely zealous in their drive to follow the quickly cooling trail of the dinosaur monster and the murderous brat. But the Centaurs were also extremely resistant towards allowing the Ministry wizards into their territory.

Based on what little Sirius had gleaned from the heated arguments, the Centaurs knew where the kid and the monster had gone (though they did a great job of censoring their words) and that they wouldn't allow anyone to follow after them. Apparently the cave that Sirius and Remus had found led to some kind of 'portal' to a truly dangerous world. If Sirius was any judge, he guessed that the Centaurs had known of this 'portal' and taken to guarding against and protecting it from all kinds, whether it was from inside or outside. Why they hadn't killed the boy and the dinosaur when they exited or returned to it, that answer was likely beyond Sirius' understanding. Maybe the brat and his pet were just stupidly lucky or incredibly stealthy to have dodged the Centaurs on both trips?

What Sirius and Remus knew for certain was that although they'd found the cave, there was some kind of strange, ancient (ageless actually) magic at work. They must've flown miles both up and downstream that winding underground river and not found anything for _hours_. Remus' theory was that the cave must've had some kind of naturally-occurring Fidelius-type magic surrounding it. Which meant that a person probably needed a specific goal or special conditions before the cave and river system could 'take' the person. To a degree, Sirius could agree with that assumption, if only because he didn't understand the magics at work. Though he doubted anything as complex as a Fidelius charm could occur naturally in nature.

Having given up a short while ago at exploring the cave, Sirius decided to investigate what the Aurors were up to, much to Remus' annoyance and disapproval. For protection though, the two of them were using Invisibility Cloaks as they flew over their old Hogwarts' playpen of the Forbidden Forest while they watched. From the looks of it, things hadn't progressed at all for the _poor_ Aurors in their quest of swaying the Centaurs.

"Three Sickles says the Aurors are going or have already sent a small team in to sneak past the Centaur sentries?" Sirius muttered quietly to Remus as he lost interest in the arguing groups.

"I'm not even touching that," Remus answered easily. "I would be surprised if they haven't already found the cave."

"Which means we should probably scoot along," Sirius said seriously. Then a thought occurred to him. "Hey! How about we catch us that pretty little Auror with the changing hair colors? We could interrogate the little witch to find out what they're up to, eh?"

Rolling his eyes, Remus just sighed slightly. "I don't think that your dear niece would appreciate you ruining her cover or Professor Dumbledore having to clean up your mess again."

"You've gotten very boring in the past decade, old friend," Sirius whined almost childishly. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Sorry, I left that back at Hogwarts when we graduated," Remus said evenly, though he rolled his eyes once again. Turning his broom around, he prepared to fly off. "Come on, let's go and see if we can figure out how that cave works again."

"You are _really_ boring these days," Sirius muttered in annoyance to himself as he heard his friend off. Turning his own Firebolt broom around, a gift he was looking forward to giving his missing godson when he found him again, he shot off as fast as the incredible broom would take him.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**6:06pm  
Jungle cavern**

Against her better judgment, Fleur decided that she'd rather spend time with the young jungle savage and his little family of dinosaurs than to spend the remainder of the evening with the Weasley brothers, especially when she and Bill were still grating on each other's nerves so much. Her stubbornness caused her to resist his increasingly agitated attempts to get her to relax and heal properly before continuing on with her mission.

Yes, in her mind, spending her evening in the company of Harry and worrying about the Allosaurus mother eating her was much more preferable than spending a tense night together with Bill. The Weasley brothers had returned to the platform they'd created earlier up in the branches of the fruit tree and were likely watching her and the dinosaurs closely.

Fleur was sitting in a comparatively small hole in the massive fruit tree's trunk that she'd created. It was nestled at least ten meters above the surface and the prowling Allosaurus family. Inside this artificially tree cave, she'd erected her tent for the night. Next she'd extended the front of the cave into a balcony upon which she'd conjured a small dining table and chairs. Thanks to a clever angling of the platform to hug the tree and judicious amount of repelling wards that she'd learned from Bill yesterday, she felt secure enough in her new 'home' to feel that neither the dinosaur or Harry could reach her. Harry may have some impressive physical strength and unbelievable prowess with his magic, but surely not even he could've climbed the tree to this height to reach her, right?

She now sat at her dinner table and was leisurely eating a simple meal of perfectly sliced vegetables with dip, a premade chicken sandwich on rye bread, and was sipping at her large goblet of water. Floating around her was a trio of golden orbs that provided her with adequate lighting in the darkness of the jungle evening. Sitting on her table next to her was her wand and a journal with a quill that she'd transfigured on a whim as she was setting up her new camp.

With her free hand, she was carefully chronicling everything that she could remember that had taken place since her ill-fated First Task had begun. As she was writing, she'd stop at various points to use her wand to transfer memory images onto the pages. These images, because they formed by memories, would automatically shift the ink available on the page to take the shapes necessary to make the pictures. Despite herself, Fleur couldn't help but wince slightly at the ugly images. Magical art had never been a favorite subject of hers, so a lot of the pictures were of inferior quality to her critical eye. Fleur had also never been one to chronicle her thoughts and life like she was doing now, but she couldn't help but feel the need to now. That way she would have a record of this crazy misadventure that she'd found herself in to help her remember it in the long years of her life to come.

It was a small movement in the air, so slight that she might not have even noticed it, but it carried with it a smell of freshly-cooked meat and something sweet. This strange smell roused Fleur from her vivid concentration of her journal project to look up and around to find the source. She found it sitting crouched upon the tree trunk, feet tightly gripping a section of a wedge shape in the trunk, as it leaned forward to watch her with curious eyes that seemed to somehow glow an exotic leaf-green in the light of her multiple Lumos spells. Needless to say, seeing Harry sitting not six feet above her for an undetermined amount of time and not seemingly affected by her carefully laid protection wards, caused Fleur to flinch back in surprise with a small yelp.

Quickly recomposing herself, she glared up at him. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

As though he'd understood what she'd snarled at him, Harry cocked his head slightly as a strange grin tugged at his face. Clearly deciding to forego stealth now that he'd been noticed, Harry dropped lightly to the platform under him, not even making a sound of impact. Then, in typical wild man fashion, he approached Fleur's dining table to closely examine everything on it, dropping a small hunk of cooked meat he'd been carrying on the table before turning his attention to her plates, silverware, and food.

"That's my dinner!" Fleur barked again as she tried to pull her sandwich away from Harry's filthy hands.

She was only partially successful as he was able to snag out a piece of the chicken. After taking a few deep sniffs of it and closely eyeing it under the light of her Lumos spells for whatever reason, he finally took an experimental bite of it. Much to Fleur's satisfaction, he made a painful grimace at the dryness of the chicken and quickly spit it out to the side. Next, he was able to get his hands on to one of Fleur's remaining apples. Sadly, she didn't notice this until it was too late to stop him since she was hurriedly stuffing her half-eaten meal into the cooler at her side.

Before she could protest, Harry had already drawn one of his daggers and had taken a careful slice out of it. Lunging forward in a desperate attempt to reclaim her apple, Fleur only managed to stumble and fall over herself as she grasped nothing but air while Harry leapt back safely up to his earlier crouched position. As he was taking his first experimental taste of the sweet treat, Fleur grabbed up her wand and Summoned the apple back safely to her hand. But Harry didn't seem to mind as he was busy examining the strange taste of the apple piece in his mouth.

"Yeah, you better enjoy it while you can," Fleur grumbled heatedly. She stared down at the recovered apple with distaste. Glaring back up at Harry who was again staring down at her questioningly, she spat out, "I wish you'd choked on it! This is all _your fault! _If you hadn't interfered with my test, I wouldn't have been here in the first place. I wouldn't have been…I wouldn't…" She couldn't help but cradle her scarred arm and chest as she failed to voice her intended words. "Who's gonna want a _hideous_ woman like me _now? THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!_"

Harry's gaze was impassive as he watched her. He closely watched how she snapped at him with an angry glare, only to draw into herself and start rubbing the areas where she'd been hurt in a moment of weakness, and finishing with a loud yell. He didn't need to be a genius or truly understand the language to guess at what she was referencing as she was yelling at him.

"But then, I suppose you don't care about any of that now, do you?" Fleur muttered, more to herself than him as she turned away and dropped heavily onto her chair, still cradling her chest. "After all, you probably grew up in this place. What are a few _deformations_ to you? You don't have to worry about what other people see you as or think of you." To Fleur, her natural-born beauty had been a thing of tremendous pride to her. Now it was forever stained. What kind of a man would want to marry a scarred beauty?

This time, she did hear him as he dropped down to the balcony again a short distance away from her. Glancing over at his crouched form, she saw that his expression was strangely serious as he peered at her. And for that strange moment of time, Fleur would later swear on her magic that he was actually looking into her soul to find the answers he was looking for, so piercing were his eyes.

Apparently finding his answer, she watched as he stood up to his full height. Lifting his arms, he lifted off his sleeveless green cloak and shoulder sling with one fluid motion and dropped them to the floor, letting his long hair wave freely in the evening winds. Before she could protest his actions, he bent forward and rapidly tugged off his brown leather shirt, standing back up straight as he did so.

In the light of her Lumos spells, Fleur beheld a gruesome sight. He was nothing if not extremely well built, his muscles were toned, clearly visible, and appeared to be coiled and ready for release. But that wasn't what drew Fleur's attention…not too much of it anyway. Covering a considerable majority of his torso and arms were numerous scratches, slashes, bite marks, and puncture wounds that he'd clearly sustained and healed from. Most of the wounds were in groups of three; some stretching from as far as his shoulders all the way down to his pants and disappearing underneath, and many of the scars crisscrossed each other.

Looking back up at his face, Fleur stared again at the trio of large slashes that trailed down his face. In comparison to his body, those three cuts were small. But, now that she was seeing more of him, Fleur quickly realized the true extent of the danger he faced on a daily basis. His collection of wounds and scars made hers seem very small and meaningless in contrast, hardly something to throw a tantrum over. Somehow, she found herself feeling strangely…better about herself.

Unable to look at them any longer, Fleur turned away. "I'm sorry, Harry."

Quickly redressing himself, Harry moved cautiously forward towards her, something that might've made her smile slightly at the slight irony of the situation if she hadn't just seen his scar collection. Tracking his gaze, she realized that he was staring inquisitively at her journal and the image of the waterfall she and the Weasleys had arrived through when they entered the jungle cavern. Turning back to Harry, she saw him glance at her questioningly, his hands trembling from likely the repressed urge to reach forward and examine the book for himself. Now why, after taking her food and interrupting her meal with no regards to her feelings, would he care about 'asking' her permission to see her journal?

Shrugging, she moved the journal over towards him to allow him a better angle to see the picture. Reaching forward awkwardly, Harry grasped the book and stared closely at the picture. Turning the page backwards, he stared uncomprehendingly at the French words and letters. Turning several more pages, he found another picture. This time the picture was of himself crouching next to a stream drinking water next to that furry animal that had visited him. When he saw that image, he immediately looked up at Fleur with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, that was me," she muttered, not the least bit embarrassed at his almost accusing gaze. "What?"

"Whaa—?" Harry croaked out, a look of extreme concentration on his face.

Blinking, Fleur just stared at him for a moment. Did he just do what she thought he did? "What?"

"Whaaat?" he parroted, that look of concentration never leaving his face.

Smiling angelically, Fleur lifted her hand and tapped her chest. "I'm Fleur Delacour." Seeing him staring at her lips as she spoke, she repeated herself several times, speaking much more slowly and punctuating each syllable as best as her French accent could allow.

"I'm Fleu—_rr_ Dela—_curr_," Harry finally repeated as best he could, even mimicking Fleur's hand motions towards his own chest.

For just a second, a small laugh escaped Fleur as she took in the absurdity of his mimicry. Maybe imitation was a form of flattery? "No, no, no," she said. Gesturing to herself, "Fleur." Reaching over, she lightly touched Harry's chest as she said, "Harry." Tapping herself again, she repeated, "Fleur."

"Fleu—_rr?_" Fleur almost smiled again at the way he'd pronounced her name by growling the r's. Gesturing to himself, he then said, "Ha—_rr_—y?" Fleur nodded her head in approval, which earned her a smile from Harry.

"Ha_rr_y," he repeated, more so to himself than Fleur. But then, he suddenly froze as his eyes glazed over. For one eternal moment, he just stared off into space, clearly remembering something. Curious despite herself, Fleur waved her hand slightly in front of his eyes. Blinking and then snapping back into reality, Harry peered at her with that all-seeing gaze of his again. Then he began muttering in an increasingly louder voice as a smile began stretching across his face. "Ha_rr_y. _Harry! HARRY!_"

With a happy shout, Harry abruptly turned and vaulted over the edge of the Fleur's little balcony. Surprised, Fleur rushed over and watched as he slid down the bark of the tree trunk. What was he doing now? Upon reaching the roots below, he took off at surprisingly fast speed towards the river. Even in the dim light of the moon overhead, she could barely make out Harry's outline as he suddenly stopped and crouched down next to the river for a few moments. Then, just as quickly as he'd left, Harry returned back to the tree and climbed up the steep and rugged trunk at a speed that honestly surprised the Veela witch.

Dropping back into his earlier position that he'd abandoned not even five minutes earlier, Harry dug into his hip pouch and withdrew some kind of leather bag. Inside it, she could hear jostling water. Watching curiously at what he was doing, Fleur saw him then dig out what looked to be a crudely cut goblet from his pouch. As he was emptying the water into the goblet, he idly drew one of his daggers and tapped it to the surface of the small balcony wall, sending a tiny burst of magic into the wood as he did so.

"What are you doing?" Fleur asked, quite confused.

Harry looked up at her and smiled as he reached out his hand to the side. Not a second later, something dropped down into his outstretched hand. It was one of those dark pink exploding fruits. Fleur blinked in surprise at the fruit's sudden appearance as he began meticulously slicing it into sections. Did he just use that pulse of magic to 'summon' one of the fruits out of the tree to his hand?

Shaking her head clear of her wandering thoughts, Fleur watched as he divided the fruits into fourths and carefully extracted the walnut-sized seed. Setting the volatile seed to the side, he grabbed the fruit slices and roughly squeezed the juices out of each them, catching the liquid in the goblet. Tossing the mashed fruit aside, he used another small pulse of magic to instantly dry his hands. In one hand, he picked up his dagger and grabbed the seed in other. Seeing Harry angling the dagger towards the seed, Fleur quickly backed away slightly. Harry merely quirked an eyebrow at her actions before returning to his earlier actions and gently cutting and prying the seed apart by following the fault lines of it. Fleur couldn't help but hold her breath as she watched him work, unable to stop herself from tensing up every time it looked like he might set off the bomb.

After a stressful two minutes, Harry finally split the seed apart and emptied the shell of its inner seeds. Throwing the shells off to the side, where they both exploded in considerably weakened blasts, Harry set the two white inner seeds on the table and began grinding them into a fine powder by using the handle of his dagger. Once he'd reduced them enough to his satisfaction, he swept them into his goblet, combining it with the river water and fruit juices. Covering the opening with his palm, he began rigorously shaking the concoction, all the while wearing a strange smile on his face. After only a few moments, he stopped and carefully examined the bubbling pink brew.

Nodding his approval to it, he turned to Fleur and held it out to her. "Fleu_rrr_," he…purred?

Glancing between the drink and his eagerly awaiting expression, Fleur hesitantly took the crude goblet from him. In the light of her Lumos spells, she peered down critically at the strange liquid she held. It was bubbling in a manner that eerily reminded her of a potion that was on the brink of blowing up, despite being 'room temperature'. She could faintly see the seed powder as it was drifting around in the liquid, looking something like spices in a soup. It didn't look very mouthwatering. And it definitely smelled like something she'd rather not drink, far too sour if her nose wasn't fooling her.

Glancing back up at Harry, she saw that he was staring right at her, unblinking and unmoving. For just a second, she toyed with the thought that maybe she could get away with not drinking it. But when Harry made a sudden, if somewhat subtle, glance down back at the drink before returning to his earlier gaze at her face, she realized that it wouldn't work.

Raising it to her lip, Fleur gathered her courage quickly before taking a small sip. The juice tasted strongly of citrus, quite sour, but there was a strange element of sweetness to it. As it passed down her throat, Fleur blinked in surprise when she felt something familiar begin to happen. Her body began to feel strangely warm, an effect that that she normally associated with another potion she was somewhat familiar with. Taking another longer drink and fighting against gagging at the strong taste, she still winced deeply as the liquid ran down her throat. But as it settled, she felt the slight warmth from earlier blossom into a potent heat that rapidly caused her face to light up red.

Gawking at the familiar effects she was experiencing, Fleur failed to realize that someone was laughing at her until several moments afterwards. She was too busy staring in surprise and incomprehension to the fact that in her hand was exactly what she needed, a Pepperup Potion. Though Pepperup Potions were commonly used to cure a person of colds and coughs, they also had the wider effect of helping the body return to peak of health; a type of general health restorative, though not nearly as potent as some of the other potions out there.

It wasn't until Harry took the goblet from her hands that she realized that he had been chuckling at her silly expressions. Lifting the goblet, he drank down the remainder of the juice without even blinking an eye at the sourness. When his face suddenly flushed red, he just laughed with a wide and silly grin, especially at the slightly disgusted look she was giving him for drinking from the goblet without her consent.

A loud bark from below quickly drew their attentions. Harry hopped up onto the small railing of the balcony and peered down into the darkness as he let out a small sequence of barks and chirps. Even though she didn't understand the language he was using, even Fleur could understand that he was in some kind of trouble when the Allosaurus mother released a rather threatening growl that had even Harry cringing.

Turning back to Fleur, Harry quickly gathered up his goblet and sheathed his dagger before dropping out of sight.

For several moments, Fleur just stood at the balcony railing, staring down at the dark shapes of the boy and his dinosaur family moving around in the deepening night. Finally regaining some mental equilibrium, Fleur turned back to her journal to continue her earlier project and dig out her hastily hidden dinner.

High up in the branches of the fruit tree, Bill had watched the entire encounter between them in silence. Despite himself, he couldn't help but feel rather angry. How was it that the Veela seemed so much accepting and tolerant of a wild child than with a highly-skilled and trained wizard such as himself? Did the girl perhaps just like younger boys?

Shaking his head to clear it, Bill withdrew from the Omnioculars. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Charlie was also watching him with a surprisingly guarded expression. Turning to stare at his brother, Bill silently challenged Charlie to lecture him as he knew he wanted to.

Finally shrugging, Charlie returned his attention back to his previous act of playing chess against his brother. "Just don't make a scene tomorrow."

* * *

(**Author's Note**)

I give my thanks to **Addictedforlife** for reviewing this chapter.

I wonder just how many of you can spot the two small movie scenes I'd included in this chapter. One of them is probably very easy to see, but can you guess the second?

And I'm sorry about the long wait. I had to go in for surgery on my knee in late December, been doped up on pain pills for the next two weeks, and unable to form any real types of inspiration to write until just recently. I hope you all don't start yelling at me to hurry up with the next chapter, but I honestly don't know when it'll come out.

Oh, by the way, lately I've been talking with a few other authors and have managed to interest them in writing some of my story ideas. If you're interested in them, the current stories being written are 'The Mercenary of Hogwarts' and 'Harry Potter and the Oriental Philosophy'. Both of them are being written by some very talented and thorough authors. Disregarding the fact that I initially developed the concept ideas, I do recommend them to be read because they are very well written.

Nevertheless, here's some information I think that some of you might find interesting. I certainly used it when writing this and the previous chapter.

**Class II Hemorrhage** involves 15-30% of total blood volume. A patient is often tachycardic (rapid heartbeat) with a narrowing of the difference between the systolic and diastolic blood pressures. The body attempts to compensate with peripheral vasoconstriction (narrowing of blood vessels). Skin may start to look pale and be cool to the touch. The patient may exhibit slight changes in behavior. Volume recovery with crystalloids (Saline solution or Lactated Ringer's solution) is all that is typically required. Blood transfusion is not typically required.

The average human adult has roughly 5 liters (1.6 gallons) of blood in their body, which accounts for about 8% of their overall body weight.


	13. A Ray of Sunshine

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 13—A Ray of Sunshine_

**26 November 1994  
Saturday, 8:43pm**

She wasn't sure why she was still up, but she was. Fleur was physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted and she needed her sleep. But for some reason that she just couldn't fathom, she just couldn't get her body and mind to relax enough to manage it. It was actually very annoying to her because she dearly wanted to get that much needed rest.

Bored, Fleur climbed out of her bed and walked out of the tent. Outside her magically (if only partially successfully) cooled tent, Fleur once again found herself awash in the oppressive humidity of the jungle and the ever-present vapors of the trees. But where the humidity had been staggeringly overwhelming just a three hours earlier, the air had actually cooled down enough that it almost comfortable enough to bear. The difference was even more noticeable to Fleur since was now dressed in a simple pajama top and shorts with her hair loose and waving slightly in the breeze.

Looking out at the jungle from her elevated vantage point, Fleur was once again awash in the serene calmness the night seemed to bring to this underground world. The distant, echoing calls of various dinosaurs, the winds brushing through and playing with the trees and leaves, the faint gurgling and movement of the river a short distance away. All of it added itself into one large panoramic view of true, natural beauty. If not for the staggering humidity and dangerous dinosaurs, Fleur silently admitted to herself that she could easily live in this jungle.

Below her, a particularly loud barking squeak caught her attention. Glancing down, the young Veela spotted the shadowed silhouette of one of the Allosaurus hatchlings. Even in the faint moonlight, Fleur could see its reflective golden eyes twinkling like a pair of stars. It was prowling around the length of the small enclosure of the giant fruit tree's roots that made up the nesting area. It was hunched slightly and slowly moving about, as though hunting for prey in the small patches of weeds and grasses that grew nearby.

Even as she watched, the hatchling suddenly froze and dropped to the ground, remaining absolutely still for a second before suddenly lunging forward with cat-like speed and grace. It pounced upon the small patch of tall grasses in front of it with a little squeaking bark and snarl that almost sounded triumphant to Fleur. Much to Fleur's surprise, the grasses suddenly faded away to reveal the hatchling grappling with a large chunk of messy black hair. Harry let out a barking laugh as he stood up, slightly hoisting the little Allosaurus off the ground as it refused to relinquish its trophy.

Dropping down to let the hatchling stand on its own, Harry began gently tugging at his hair, trying to get the baby dinosaur to release it. But the hatchling just clamped down harder and pulled that much more forcefully, causing a small pained grunt to escape Harry. In next to no time, the two of them had degenerated to a semi-playful tug-of-war over Harry's hair. Their game also attracted the attention of the other hatchlings, rousing them from their slumber. Two of them quickly bounced out and rushed to join the game, the other three remained in their nest and tried to return to sleep.

Despite herself, Fleur felt a small smile pull at her lips. That boy was so carefree; his only concerns likely being his 'family', his next meal, and not becoming a meal himself. He didn't have to worry about the expectations of peers, parents, teachers, or the populace in general. The only rule he lived by was survival of the fittest. Was that how he seemed able to live so happily in a world where no human should've been able to? But how and when did he get here? Who were his parents? And, since he was magically gifted with power and control that she'd never seen or heard of before, why hadn't anyone been able to find him before his sudden appearance a few days ago?

As she continued watching the game of tug-of-war, Fleur found herself pondering ways to get him to take her to her egg. She couldn't use her Veela charm on him since he seemed to have abnormally strong willpower to resist and just shrug it off. She couldn't communicate with him too well, regardless of the fact that he seemed to be trying to learn (or relearn) English. And, based on his reaction to the image of the golden egg she'd shown him earlier, he didn't want to have anything to do with it. Well, that was alright. As long as he showed her where and what he'd done with the egg, she wouldn't care if he followed them to the ends of the earth or left them in the dust. All she needed was to know where her egg was.

But then, that could wait for the morning. Right now, she really needed to relax and sleep. And the best way for her to do that was…somewhat embarrassing for her. Still, need overrode her uncertainty. Breathing deeply to calm her nerves and to enter the correct mindset, she began to softly sing. It was a gentle, soothing lullaby that her mother had used to sing to her when she was younger.

"La fleur, la lueur et le rougeoiement,  
Laissez votre lustre de pouvoir."

Unnoticed by Fleur, her soft voice was carrying over the surrounding area thanks to the lack of strong winds and other forest noises to dampen it. The gentle melody quickly attracted attention from those below her.

Harry looked up towards where he could hear something…soft and soothing coming from that golden-haired girl's tree cave. As he did this, he saw something that quickly piqued his interest even more. Pulling free of the distracted Allosaurus' slackened grips, he silently jumped forward to the tree to investigate.

"Faites le contraire de l'horloge,  
Rapportez ce qui une fois était le mien."

Harry hoisted himself silently upon the railing that lined Fleur's cave and stared with wide eyes at the magnificent sight before him. The formerly beautiful girl had now somehow become absolutely radiant. Her long yellow hair seemed to glow with an unearthly golden color. With her eyes closed, she didn't notice her visitor, so focused on her singing she was.

"Guérissez ce qui a été mal fait,  
Changez le design des Destins,  
Sauvez ce qui s'est senti perdu."

As the song reached its final lyric, Fleur could practically feel the tension leaving her body as if by magic. She had once asked her mother how the song could always soothe and calm her, no matter how many times she'd heard it. Her mother had just smiled a sweet, mysterious smile and told her she'd explain it to her when she was older.

All that she had told Fleur was that this song had been passed for generations through her mother's family. That it had some sort of significance to the family line.

"Rapportez ce qui une fois était le mien,  
Ce qui une fois était le mien."

Sighing lightly as she released the last syllable, she opened her eyes and stared at Harry, who had appeared upon the railing of her balcony at some point. If she hadn't been as relaxed as she was after that song and having grown somewhat aware to Harry's ability to move silently, she might've yelped in fright at the surprise. But as it was, her only response to seeing that she'd attracted his attention was to blush deeply at the realization that he'd heard her singing.

But her embarrassment was quickly pushed to the side as she saw something sparkling fall from Harry's cheek. Looking closer, she blinked in surprise. Harry's eyes were wet, small streaks of tears trailing down his cheeks. His expression was one of unbridled awe and wide eyed staring. There was something different in those leaf-green eyes of his as well. Like he could suddenly _see_ something that he hadn't been able to before or he now saw something about her that had escaped his notice earlier. Suffice to say, it was putting her on edge very slightly.

"Harry?" she asked gently, trying not to disturb him. There was something truly profound in his expression that she just couldn't understand. Had her singing done that to him?

"F-Fle_urr_," he purred, his expression and gaze changing to something that she couldn't decipher, something…softer. Then a soft smile appeared on his face as he reached forward, holding his hand out for her grasp.

Fleur stared at his hand with uncertainty before looking questioningly at him again. His smile didn't wane in the least as he waited patiently for her to grasp his hand. With considerable reluctance and hesitance, she finally took his hand. He pulled her towards him, surprising her when he suddenly swept her off her feet. Cradling her in his powerful arms, he leapt off the railing. Fleur had to bite her tongue slightly to keep from yelping in fear as she grabbed tightly upon Harry's body.

But the boy didn't seem to mind or even notice as he turned his fall into a slide down the fruit tree's trunk and massive root below them. Skidding to a quick stop once he was able to, he bounced to the ground where the nest was. To Fleur's slight embarrassment, she saw that she had apparently gotten the dinosaurs' attentions with her singing as well. All of them, even the temperamental mother, were staring at her with what could've been curious gazes on their reptilian faces.

Harry didn't pay the dinosaurs any attention, not even setting Fleur upon the ground to walk for herself. He moved forward and easily brushed past the dinosaurs, heading towards the darkness of where the tree roots met the dirt. It wasn't until they'd passed the mother Allosaurus that Fleur saw something that she hadn't seen before. In the notch where the root met the dirt, there was an opening to what she could faintly see to be a low-ceiling cave.

'_I must not have seen it before because I was more focused on the nest_,' Fleur realized as Harry approached the cave. Crouching down, he ducked into the darkness within, clearly knowing exactly where he was going.

Grabbing her wand from the pocket of her pajama shorts, she lit the tip of it to see where they were heading. The small burst of magic caused Harry to flinch at the brightness momentarily, but he had no other reaction. Fleur saw that they were in some kind of small tunnel, the earth was damp but firm and there was a definite coolness in the air that was strangely chillier than the outside jungle.

As they rounded a corner, Fleur's grasp of her wand vanished at the sight before her, the magic tool falling limply to the ground and the light it was emitting disappeared. They had just entered into a large chamber, clearly the interior of the massive fruit tree. But the unexpected cavern wasn't what surprised Fleur. It was the countless thousands of glowing crystals and gems that were embedded in the wooden walls. The magic was so impossibly thick in the air that washed over Fleur that she could quite literally taste it as she gasped in surprised.

Looking around the chamber, she instantly realized that the magic seemed to be coming _from_ the glowing crystals. What were they? Were they the reason that this fruit tree had grown to such monstrous proportions? How could there be such things that existed in this world yet no one knew of them? What was this place?

It took Fleur a few moments to realize that Harry had put her down at some point and was walking into the center of the chamber. Turning back to face her, he pulled out something from his hip pouch and brought it to his face. Fleur had to fight to keep her attention on Harry. He smiled at her before bringing what looked like a simple reed flute to his lips and began blowing.

A haunting melody formed from those sounds that he made. Then, before Fleur's eyes, the almost-suffocating magic that was engulfing her began to react to Harry's music. She watched as a small maelstrom of blue-white energy began circling around Harry, fluctuating to the pitches and pauses of the music he made. Then the crystals themselves began to glow much more brightly. Looking up, Fleur saw the entire chamber in clear view thanks to the star-like crystals lining the walls.

Suddenly the maelstrom of energy circling Harry expanded. A tendril of the magic reached towards Fleur. She was unable to react in time as the tendril instantly reached her and formed itself own maelstrom around her. As it did, emotions, sensations, and even vague images began rising up in her mind. She felt an overwhelming sense of pride, happiness, grief, loneliness, and anger. Her body was flinching and twitching almost of its own accord, nearly out of control as the sensations washed over and filled her.

In her mind's eye, Fleur suddenly saw images. The first few images were extremely fuzzy. So fuzzy that it took her several moments to realize that she was in fact standing in what looked like a Muggle household. She saw what looked like a family eating at a dinner table, a _very_ fat man with his very thin wife and a child who seemed very obese for his age. Then she saw another small child, this one in perfect and crisp detail, standing discreetly over in the hallway and looking hungrily at the meal that the family was having. Before Fleur could question what was happening, _something_ told her that the child hadn't been invited to the table to eat yet.

The image shifted to yet another fuzzy one. This one was outside, probably in the playground of a Muggle school or park. The same small child was staring longingly at the group of kids that were playing on the jungle gym. And the reason that he didn't try to join them was because if he did, the fat one and his friends would start throwing rocks and calling him bad names and force the other kids to not play with him until he left.

Then she saw the boy walking along a train tracks, backpack slung over his small frame, as he stared wondrously at the slowly changing scenery around him. It was then that Fleur noticed that the surroundings of this image were growing increasingly clearer in view than the previous images had been. Suddenly she was watching as the boy, in a dark forest and hurriedly packing up what looked like a small campsite, was suddenly ambushed by a large spider that she recognized as an Acromantula. She watched as the boy managed to wound and escape it and its approaching family by falling into a cave and the river hidden within.

She saw him wake up in a strange jungle and his first acquaintance with a juvenile Allosaurus, that he'd named 'Allie' in his head. She watched him use his budding magic to heal her injury and Allie dragging him back to her nest. She watched how the two of them fought off the ambush of raptors and Allie's mother reluctantly accepting Harry's presence. She watched how Harry grew more powerful in his magic in response to many, _many_ life-threatening situations that demanded a strong mind, body, and power to survive. She saw the day that he'd gotten the scars over his face, on his eleventh birthday, and the strange magical explosion that immediately followed the wound, which completely obliterated the attacking carnivore. Then she watched as he and Allie moved away from their mother's nest to make their own territories. She watched how Harry explored the cave system and found a way out of the jungle, but refused to leave the place that he now saw as his home. She saw him and Allie leave the jungle to hide her eggs, and their following return to check up on them, only to find them missing.

Then, the images faded away as she returned to the hidden tree chamber. The maelstrom of magic energy circling her was slowly fading away as Harry's music began to slow down. What had he just done to her? Had he just somehow shown her his memories of his life? As the last notes of his song ended, the magic had finally faded away back to its earlier state of 'dormancy' with the crystals twinkling like stars. Fleur just stood rooted to the spot as she stared at Harry. Harry just stood still as well, his face lowered and his long hair hiding whatever his expression was in the shadows.

It took her a few moments to realize that she had a small trail of tears running down her cheeks. Harry was…something special, she realized. She suddenly found that she understood him far, far better than she had ever thought she could've. He had lived a sad, isolated, and unloved life with his family. He ran away because he really didn't have anything to lose by doing so. Then he stumbled upon a strange place, as beautiful as it was dangerous. But, with the help of the first friend that he'd ever had in his life, he'd made it into a home. And it was a home he wanted to desperately protect against people like his old family. That was why he wanted her and the Weasleys to leave immediately and never, ever return.

'_What a sad, lonely life he is living_,' Fleur thought as she rediscovered her motor skills. Walking forward to Harry's unmoving form, she stopped just an arm's distance away from him and looked down upon his comparably shorter but much more powerful form.

Slowly, he raised his green gaze up to look at her with that same wide eyed expression that he'd had when he'd heard her singing. Now she thought she understood what that expression meant. It was need. He…wanted her to stay, because he saw something truly beautiful in her that he'd never seen in any other human he'd ever known before. She was the single ray sunshine in humanity that he'd probably ever encountered in the darkness he'd been surrounded by when he was up on the surface. At least, the only one he could consciously remember. He wanted her stay…with him. But at the same time, he needed her to leave because he knew that she didn't belong in this savage jungle any more than he truthfully did.

It was this realization that brought a soft, sad smile upon Fleur's face as she stared down at the boy before her.

"Fle_urr_?" he purred questioningly at her smile.

She _honestly_ didn't plan on it. Never had she ever done anything out of reflex or instinct. Because of what would happen if she ever lost control herself and let her Veela aura run loose, Fleur had always fought to remain in supreme control of her emotions and actions, even when she was mind-numbingly furious. But that purr, Harry's unguarded gaze, and everything that she'd just experienced of his past, all of it had built up inside her and were what led to what happened next.

She locked his lips in a passionate kiss. Even after she realized what she was doing, it was already too late. Harry was responding in extremely awkward attempts to mimic her, his strong arms encircling her and pulling her closer. She knew she should stop what was happening. She could already guess what was destined to happen to them later on if this were to get out of control. Whether it would be tomorrow or the next day, it was inevitable. But, she couldn't stop herself.

Fleur wouldn't return to her tent until _quite_ some time later that night.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**11:59pm  
Hogwarts**

It was quiet in the castle. And he quite liked it like this at times. Though he had greatly enjoyed his tenure here as a teacher and later Headmaster, every so often a person needed some time of peace and quiet to be with themselves and their own thoughts. And Dumbledore found himself in need of this more than ever now.

He was getting very concerned. Not only about the ongoing search that had strangely hit a dead-end, but for the people involved in it. The Aurors had tracked the boy and his beast as far as the Centaur territory, where the trail had apparently run right into the very heart of it. But before the main force could continue on, they had been intercepted by the Centaurs who were absolutely immovable. Nothing could said or done to get the Centaurs to allow the Aurors to continue their hunt after the boy.

Of course, that didn't stop some of the more stubborn and resourceful wizards and witches from continuing the search. Using the argument as a distraction, a small handful had snuck away and managed to pick up the trail again. But when the trail disappeared into an underground river system, they completely lost it. It was as though the boy and his dinosaur pet had never even been there. There were clues, such as the staked pit and a split log, to show that the boy had been there and that Ms. Delacour and the Weasley brothers had somehow managed to follow him. But none of the Aurors could get anywhere.

Not even Sirius and Remus had managed to get past this strange obstacle that they found blocking their path. They had reported to flying both up and downriver for quite a ways, but never finding anything. Remus had suggested that there was some form ancient magic being used in or around the river to protect something, but he had no idea what it could possibly be, how to get around it, or how the kids had evidently managed to since they had disappeared into the cave but not come out.

And while Dumbledore did have the utmost confidence in each of the children who'd gone off on this mission, even he was beginning to grow more concerned about their growing absence. Surely it shouldn't have taken them this long to find the boy, get him to take them to the nest, and retrieve the golden egg. Something must've happened to delay them. And he just couldn't help but feel that it was something bad. Had one or more of them gotten hurt or incapacitated enough that they couldn't move?

Then there was what Dumbledore was worried about with the boy. If that boy truly was Harry Potter, he was already in so much trouble it wasn't even funny. It would seem that Harry had most definitely inherited his father's troublemaker ways and disregard for rules and laws. Seven deaths staining his hands, interrupting an international tournament that was more prestigious than even enrollment into Hogwarts, invading the sanctity of the Forbidden Forest, causing yet another quarrel between the Ministry and Centaurs that had a very real possibility of degenerating into a bloody revolt, and his long-absence from the Wizarding World in general.

Yes, Dumbledore could see that he had a long way to go to get things back on the course they should've been. First, he'd need to read the boy's memories to find out what type of person he really was and what kind of life he'd been living. He may have clearly become some type of forest hermit, but that didn't mean anything to what his mannerisms and mentality were like. If they proved unsatisfactory, he'd have to wipe the boy's mind clean of however much was needed and then help the boy redevelop into the type of person who'd fight for the good of the people.

And while he could do nothing about the murders and following chaos, Dumbledore knew that Snape was quite capable of brewing up several clever scar removing potions. Along with a haircut, the lack of scars on his face would go a long way to hiding his identity from the public as the savage boy at the tournament. Of course, he couldn't just reintroduce the boy to the Wizarding World, he'd have to wait and let things blow over for a bit before doing that. During that time, he could probably get the boy more accustomed to living in the Wizarding World and capable performing some of the basic spells and magic that was taught in Hogwarts.

But the real trick would be getting him into Hogwarts. It was rare enough for Hogwarts to host a foreign student, and those cases were largely due to the kid's parents moving into Great Britain for whatever reason. Yet what was even rarer was for the students who were in their upper teen years, when they were less able or inclined to pick up a foreign language and needed to study for the OWLs or NEWTs. But the boy _needed_ to come to Hogwarts, the one place where he would regularly interact with others of his age and be able to meet the people he'd be fighting to one day soon protect.

Dumbledore knew that the boy hadn't been confirmed to be Harry just yet. And that it would be extremely foolish for him to get his hopes up and start making plans that he couldn't process without the real Harry. He knew that, but he couldn't stop himself from doing it anyway. So much was riding on Harry's fate to fight and (hopefully) defeat Voldemort once and for all. That boy just _had_ to be Harry Potter!

A sudden noise from behind him caused Dumbledore to halt in his slow trek through Hogwarts' halls. Turning around, he found himself face-to-face with Professor Trelawney.

"Ah, Professor, what can—?"

"_Beware of the forgotten land…_" Trelawney growled out. It was in a tone so deep and raspy that it caused her voice to crack. It was a tone he had only heard once before. He gave her his full attention instantly. "_Those who would seek its forbidden gifts…From this land shall arise a marked one…As the axis of the Lords of Death shifts…With the strength of the hunter…the Lord of Death shall march for the great hall…Should the marked one cower and falter…The Lord's army shall conquer all…_"

As the meaning of those cryptic words began to sink in, Dumbledore felt his dread begin to rise substantially. Gently, he guided the confused Trelawney back up to her tower and her abandoned bed even as his mind replayed all that had been said. If he hadn't been certain of that mysterious boy's identity before, he most _certainly_ was now. That boy was definitely the Marked One of this newest prophecy.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**27 November 1994  
Sunday, 7:08am**

With a cautious gaze, Harry peeked up through the only opening in the entire structure. Suspended very high in the air and hanging by nothing but his fingers, Harry eased himself up into the blocky structure that the two men had created earlier. He knew that these strangers had powers like him, but they seemed to have found a way of using it differently than he preferred. They tried to mold and control nature to fit their needs, whereas Harry just used what the jungle provided.

Propping himself up on his elbows as he silently heaved himself into the area within, he channeled his power into his eyes and the darkness faded slightly from his sight. He found himself staring at another of those flimsy things like the one that he'd seen in Fleur's tree cave last night. Stalking forward towards where he guessed the entrance was, Harry crouched down and eyed the faintly familiar mechanism at the bottom of the trail of teeth that arced upwards. He _knew_ what this was…but he just couldn't remember what it was. Reaching forward, he grasped the thing and slid it upwards, slowly and quietly unzipping the thing and opening the entrance.

Ducking inside, he blinked and stared for a moment. The inside of the thing was far larger than the outside had him thinking it was. _Now_ he knew why this thing was so saturated with power! This was ridiculous. Who needed so much tremendous and unused space to go to sleep? What a complete waste of the time and energy it took to make this thing.

Grimacing at the thing he was in, Harry quickly moved forward to explore the interior. He seemed to be in some kind of entrance room. Moving to the right, he found another room that was filled with boxes, a table, and two chairs. There was a smell of something very appetizing yet foreign hanging faintly in the air. Rather than pursue his curiosity and hunger, he withdrew and moved to the other room. This one had an actual wooden door on it. Eyeing the golden nub that was sticking out of the right side of the wood, Harry stared at it as he painstakingly raked his memory to remember what it was used for. But sadly the knowledge eluded him

Growling in frustration at himself as he gave up, he turned and drew back his arm. Springing forward with a slight battle cry, he smashed his elbow into the wood with all his considerable body strength. Strangely, the wood split around his arm as though he were beating down some tall grasses, practically no resistance to speak of. It split into halves with splinters flying as it was yanked forcefully off the wall and collapsed around him, sending him sprawling into the room beyond with a yelp. Reacting on instinct, Harry turned his fall into a roll and was back on his feet in a split second.

The commotion sent the two sleeping men tumbling over themselves as they were rudely awakened and startled out of their beds. One of them actually somehow wound up upside-down on the floor, legs splayed open in front of him with his blanket cascading haphazardly over his face. The other redhead managed to calm himself enough to not copy his brother. This one was staring at the dark silhouette of Harry while fumbling to reach his little stick on the bedside table next to him.

"Not yet…Mum…" the man on the floor mumbled sleepily as he turned and started to curl up on the floor, dragging his blanket into a more comfortable position. "Five more…minutes…"

"I don't think that's Mum, Charlie," the other said loudly as he lit the tip of his stick with a bright ball of light. Harry immediately winced and covered his eyes with one arm as he cancelled his enhanced eyesight. His other hand instinctively reached for a dagger as he let out a loud whine of pain. Bill couldn't help but glare at the little savage who'd interrupted his sleep. "What do you want, boy?"

Finally rubbing the light spots from his eyes, Harry noticed that neither of the men had gotten out of bed yet. How could they be so lazy? The sun was about to rise! Without a sound, he marched over to the man on the floor and yanked the blanket off him, causing him to flinch at the sudden removal of the comfortable covering. Grabbing the man's heel, he turned and started dragging him out of the sleeping room to the food room. The man, after belatedly realizing what was happening, quickly tried to break free but to no avail in Harry's steel grip. Ignoring the struggling man, Harry bodily picked him up and set him down on one of the chairs as though he were an insolent child.

Turning to return to the sleeping room to repeat this with the other man, he was moderately surprised and pleased to see that the man had already gotten himself up and followed them into the food room. Smirking at the man's sleepy glare, Harry neatly slipped past him and left the flimsy structure. Reaching the opening in the floor, Harry heard something and glanced behind him. It was the redhead again, watching him with quickly awakening eyes. Ignoring the man, Harry stepped out and dropped down the hole, spinning and catching the floor before he dropped away from it. Carefully, he began working his way back towards the tree and safety.

Now that the men were awake, it was time to get Fle_ur_ up so he could finally send them on their way.

* * *

(**Author's Note**)

Sorry about the _long_ wait. First I was recovering from my knee surgery, then I had to find a job, and just in general haven't had the drive to write all that much. Though I am pleased to say that my job is a somewhat enjoyable one because it always keeps me busy, but working 11+ hours a day for four days in a row is very exhausting. Still I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised to wake up and suddenly have the drive finish this _long_ overdue chapter.

I'm sorry about that crappy prophecy. It was something that I'd thought up a long time ago, but I just could never find the proper wording to convey what I wanted it to. What you see here is the best that I could come up with. I can only hope it wasn't too blatantly obvious just who was who in regards to that prophecy. To be honest, it was this prophecy that as one of my major problems in trying to finish this chapter. And big thanks for Fiori75 and bonkie who helped me with that!

Trivia time! Who can guess where I got that song from? I'm sure that those of you who'll figure it out will likely complain, but I really liked the song for some reason and decided on a whim to include it.

Before I forget, I'm gonna list a few stories that are out there that I think a few of you readers may be interested in if you only knew they were out there.

**Chasing the Rainbow** – rewind gone nuts (_Ranma ½,_ Alternate Universe)  
**Dark Angel of Freedom** – Maileesaeya (_Gundam SEED Destiny_, Alternate Universe)  
**Harry Potter and the Oriental Philosophy** – Fiori75 (_Harry Potter_, Alternate Universe)  
**Hidden in the Tides** – BandGeekNinja (_Naruto_, Time Travel)  
**StarCrossed Souls: Twilight of the Spirit Sword** – Hero Genkaku (_Soul Caliber 2_, Rewrite)


	14. Lingering Effects

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 14—Lingering Effects_

**27 November 1994  
Sunday, 7:46am**

His touch was like firm but gentle. His skin was rough yet warm. Anywhere he touched, it was like he was sending ripples of liquid fire through her nerves, sending goosebumps and shivers up her spine like lightning. And he was not shy as he held her, caressed her, as he kissed her. Every part of him that she could feel pressed up against her back was hard like a rock and yet completely open and welcoming. Young, inexperienced, and hopelessly ignorant as he may have been, he learned extremely quickly just by mimicking her and interpreting her subtle reactions to his explorations of her body. Her reservations against such intimate actions had long since vanished like smoke in a windstorm. All that existed within her now was raw, instinctive desire.

The pair of them had at some point lowered themselves to the soft, moist ground below them. Fleur had her eyes closed as she leaned back into his naked chest as he held her secure in his arms. His lips were trailing feather-light kisses along her exposed shoulder and neck. She could smell the scent of the forest clinging to him, and her, as he buried his face into her golden-blonde hair at the nape of her neck. His long, dark hair fell forward over her shoulders like rough, flowing drapes. Her body was shivering in excitement and ecstasy yet was sweating from the humidity and all his caressing.

Currently, he was lovingly groping her breasts, examining them to the best of his ability and coincidentally adding to her enjoyment of the situation. One of his rough, calloused hands was slowing sliding down her stomach to forbidden parts. The slow, tantalizing pace of his progress was drawing a large amount of blood to her head as her face darkened into considerably deeper hues of red from embarrassment and lust. It felt like she was on fire and about to spontaneously combust. Then his fingers finally touched a little nub and her world exploded in a blinding flash of light, visible only to her, as a tsunami of pleasure washed her away.

Sitting up, gasping heavily, sweat pouring down her flushed face, Fleur's arms immediately encircled herself as she hastily gazed around herself. It took a moment for her to see and comprehend the fact that she was back in her tent, alone, with her bed sheets a tangled, disorganized mess around her legs.

"C_'était un rêve_," she told herself resorting back to her native French tongue, trying to get the image of Harry out of her head. It was a futile attempt at best. "C_'était un rêve, Fleur. C'était un rêve_."

Finally regaining some semblance of her mental balance back, she swung her legs over her the bed as she prepared to climb out. But, much to her immediate surprise, she was suddenly awash with a wave of exhaustion that was sweeping through her body. Her body ached and throbbed something fierce, especially her legs, thighs, and feet from all the walking and physical activities done yesterday. Her lungs were burning, a fiery throb that she normally associated with long-distance running. It actually pained her to take deep breaths as the burning seemed to deepen by the increase of oxygen volume within her lungs.

"Fl_eurr_!" an increasingly familiar voice purred, catching the blonde's attention immediately. Looking up, she instantly spotted Harry standing in the open doorway with a strange, almost content expression on his face. A small, hesitating smile crossed his face as he suddenly gained a look of concentration. "Fl_eurr_… Waaake…now… Eeeaaat… Hooome."

Fleur raised an eyebrow at his words, but made no immediate movement. "So, you're really trying to talk now?" she said, more to herself than him. "That's good. This'll help us considerably from now on."

"Geeet _up!_" There was no mistaking the stern command in his expression or voice. "Sun _up!_ Eeeaaat now!"

Sighing slightly, and wincing from the dull burning of her lungs, Fleur waved her hand towards the door in a silent request for him to leave. Harry just stared uncomprehendingly as she waved her hand in the air in a familiar but not-quite-recognizable gesture. Seeing his bewilderment, Fleur had to forcefully suppress her habitual need to scowl at ignorant males and remind herself that he was a jungle savage who probably didn't understand much of what she said or did anymore. Standing up and further wincing at the screaming aches of her legs and thighs, she came over and pointedly pushed him out of the room and closed the door.

Looking down at her sweaty nightclothes, Fleur's frown came out full force. She'd need a shower before she got dressed and she'd need to clean her clothes of the dirt that got smeared up in them after last night. The sudden memory flash of her unintentional kiss with Harry, along with still potent images of that vivid _dream_, brought an immediate blush to her face that she was unable to suppress as she hurried to the restroom.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

**7:56am**

Harry stood motionless waist deep in the river that was flowing next the massive tree. He wore nothing but his long, leather pants and had his shaggy hair pulled back into a braid that he'd wrapped into a ball at the back of his head. His assortment of daggers and weaponry were lying close by on the shore, though they weren't necessarily needed this deep into the heart of Allie's territory.

Behind him, he could hear the sounds of Allie and the hatchlings once again gorging themselves on the remains of yesterday's kill. They'd probably have enough to last them the rest of the night, but they'd need to go hunting tomorrow for sure. And Harry knew better than to try and sneak a piece of meat off of the meal of a hunger hunter and her babies as they ate. Alas he'd resigned himself to picking his teeth of fish bones as his after-breakfast chore.

But though his body remained motionless, his ears were able to pick out the sounds normally foreign in this setting. His trio of visitors were having their own meal and he could smell it all the way from his current position, not to mention the sounds of crackling fire, metal burning tantalizingly good-smelling meat, and the clatter of utensils on plates. It was a small wonder to him that they'd even survived long enough to almost ambush him in this jungle. Everything they did was loud, obnoxious, and attention-grabbing! Even the lady—Fleur, he reminded himself—had been disturbingly loud last night after he'd showed her the tree cave. Not that he didn't find it amusing to watch…at least until she'd somehow conjured a fireball and threw it at him. Idly, he wondered if he could do that with his power as well.

A small flash of scaly silver in the warm waters near him caught his attention. The fish were finally starting to come out and begin their seasonal swim downriver. Calming his nerves, Harry focused his mind, concentrating on the circumference on his reach as he felt his awareness of the river's flow around grow. Visible only to beings of magic, two transparent spheres of glowing white energy (a smaller one inside the larger one) surrounded Harry as he leaned ever so slightly forward in preparation. This was a trick he'd learned only recently. But while it was somewhat dangerous to expose himself by standing in the river unprotected, it still yielded better results than using a fishing line and struggling to drag the captured fish out of the water before it or he attracted unwanted attention.

Glancing over his shoulder to where he sensed several fish moving through the first sphere he'd created around himself, he watched closely as some of them began approaching his range of reach. _Slow breathing_, he chanted to himself. _Calm the mind. I am a stone in the river; unmoving, unchanging, nonthreatening. Slow breathing_. The fish was…almost…in his reach—now! Quick as a bird snatching up a worm, Harry's hand shot into the water, aiming for where the fish would instantly dash to, catching the slippery thing, and flinging it safely onto shore.

Without pausing in celebration, he repeated the process two more times, adding his number of catches to three fish that were thrashing in the grasses and dirt. Smiling largely at his awaiting meal, Harry quickly leapt from the water and pounced upon the doomed river creatures.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

Up in her tree cave, Fleur was once again sitting at her table with her journal out. She was busy adding in a new entry to record last night's events in the base of the tree, where Harry had shown her those glowing gems and his memories of his past. As she was approaching the part of where she'd kissed him on impulse, her hand froze as a faint blush crossed her face and the ink of her quill began to leak and stain the page.

Thankfully for her peace of mind, neither of the Weasley brothers seemed to notice due to the hot flush that was already gracing her features thanks to the already rising humidity and air temperatures. Unlike what she'd hoped would happen, the incessant burning in her lungs and throbbing pain of her body hadn't lessened in the least since she'd woken up. In fact, it seemed to be slowly spreading and worsening!

Rather than continue writing, she glanced up to watch the brothers. Charlie was at the small stove that he'd conjured and was busy cooking frying some eggs, sausage meat, and hash-brown potatoes. He seemed to know what he was doing, which she was quite grateful for. For all her beauty and magical skills, Fleur couldn't cook a decent or even edible meal, with or without magic, if her life depended on it. And, if the tantalizing smells she was picking up were any indication, then the younger Weasley was clearly an exceptional cook in her opinion.

It was as she was glancing over at the other brother that she gave a start of surprise. He had taken a seat across the small table from her and was blatantly looking down at her journal, clearly attempting to read the upside-down French. Paying no mind to the still damp ink coating the page, Fleur snapped the book shut as she shot an accusing glare at the young man when he glanced up at her. From his expression, she could clearly see that he was not even the least bit repentant of his invasion of her privacy. How much and how well had he been able to read before she caught on?

"I wouldn't have thought you were a girl who was interested in young boys," Bill said in a mild tone. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she could've sworn she detected a certain level of anger and jealousy in his voice.

"_Il n'est aucune de __**vos**__ affaires, Monsieur Weasley!_" Ignoring the fire in her lungs as she reflexively drew in a deep breath of air, Fleur's glare deepened defensively as she maintained her gaze on the older man. "_Ne lisez pas mes choses sans ma __**permission!**_"

"I don't have the faintest clue of what that meant," Charlie piped up from the stove without turning to look. "But she sounds very angry. Maybe you should back off a bit, Bill?"

Bill snorted slightly as he glanced at his brother. Returning his gaze to Fleur, he said, "Cristaux Ardents? What 'glowing crystals' are you talking about, Ms. Delacour?"

Fleur's glare darkened slightly. If he truly thought she was going to answer that question after reading from her journal _without_ her permission, he was greatly mistaken! Resolutely turning her gaze away in an act of obvious refusal to answer, she opened her journal (purposely keeping the pages out of Bill's line of sight) and brought her wand up to begin cleaning the mess that the wet ink had caused when she'd closed it. As she was doing so, Fleur noticed something. Why were her hands and arms beginning to flinch and tremble?

Bill just gave the Veela a halfhearted glare before turning his attention down to the dinosaurs below them. What little he'd been able to discern from her diary seemed to hint that there was a cave at the base of the tree where those 'glowing crystals' were hidden. Now, where was that cave? Ah! There it was! So easy to miss when you weren't aware of it or looking for it.

A sudden ragged coughing instantly returned Bill's attention to the beautiful blonde across from him. He quirked an eyebrow as he watched her bring a delicate hand up to her mouth to cough into. At first the coughing didn't seem anything worth worrying over. That is, until she unexpectedly leaned forward, dropping her wand and journal to the ground as her coughing turned into violent wheezes and frantic gasps for air.

"Miss Fleur, are you okay?" Bill asked standing slightly to move closer to her. All his jealousy and anger aside, he was genuinely concerned as he watched the girl brace herself against the table with one hand and continued coughing to the side. After several long moments, the violent wheezing finally lessened down to small coughs again. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Fleur didn't answer immediately. Instead, she seemed to be staring at something in her hand but he couldn't see what it was due to it being hidden under the table. "N-No," she managed to gasp out. Looking up, Bill gasped slightly himself as he saw her face had turned ghostly pale and there was a trail of blood seeping out the corner of her mouth.

Rushing to her side, Bill immediately laid her flat on the ground, pressing one of his hands upon her forehead as his other drew his wand. It was a visible sign when Fleur offered no resistance to his administrations. Fleur's skin was frighteningly cool and clammy to the touch. As he waved his wand through a diagnostic spell, Bill found himself growing increasingly alarmed. All her organs, but most especially her lungs, were suffering from internal bleeding. Her muscles were contracting and seizing at an alarming rate. And her bones seemed to be becoming increasingly brittle and weak.

"What's going on here?" Bill demanded, very alarmed as he finished his diagnostic scan.

"What's wrong?" Charlie asked, walking over with a skillet of omelets.

"I don't know," Bill answered. Turning to Charlie, he said in his best big brother-no nonsense voice, "Get out my potions and remedies while I take Fleur to her room. Move!" Charlie quickly set the skillet upon the table and rushed to the side of the balcony where he and Bill's brooms were resting. Without a word, he took off and flew up towards their tent in the tree canopy.

"N-N-No," Fleur groaned out slowly. "I…I'm…fine!"

"This is no time for your pride!" Bill said sternly, glaring forcefully down at the sick and weakened Veela. "Something's wrong here and we need to find out what and why!"

Fleur just stared up at him for a long moment. Bill decided not to wait for her reply as he scooped her up into his arms and carried her back to her bedroom. As he was laying her upon the bed, he caught a faint whisper from the girl. "G-G-Get…Harry…he know… what wrong…"

Despite himself and the situation, Bill couldn't help but turn to glare slightly at the young woman, not that she saw it since her eyes were closed and her consciousness seemed to be drifting towards sleep. She wanted that little savage's help instead of a fully trained and experienced wizard like himself and Charlie to heal her? What was she thinking?

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

Dressed in just his leather pants and undershirt with his usual cloak and weapons set off to the side, Harry sat over by the edge of the river. In front of him was a small fire he'd built to cook the fish he'd caught for breakfast. Alongside the small fire was a collection of various fruits and edible plants he'd collected shortly after catching his fish. Harry watched as one of the red-haired men flew up into the tree canopy at an incredibly fast speed. What was he doing up there? And why did he seem to be in a hurry?

Shrugging to himself, Harry turned back to the fire and three sticks that were holding his gutted and descaled fish close to the fire. The smell of cooking fish, though normally a tempting and mouth-watering scent for Allie and most other predators, was scarcely noticeable over the much stronger scents of the visitors' food that still hung heavy in the air. Harry couldn't help but feel strangely grateful for that. It meant that he didn't need to constantly ward off Allie and prevent her from stealing some of his food. Though as friendly and a proud hunter as she was, Allie never passed up the chance to steal food when it was available, even if it was sometimes Harry's.

Grabbing the fish that smelled the most done, he eagerly bit into it and returned his attention to the far up tree branches. Idly munching his meat, he watched as the red man reappeared and raced back down the tree trunk at staggering speeds before slowing down enough to safely land at Fleur's tree cave. Then he heard the man start loudly talking in a voice that sounded…worried? What was going on up there?

As he was finishing up his second fish and was biting into some dried, bitter red roots he'd dug up a while ago, his curiosity finally won over. Grabbing the last fish and a ripe bomba fruit, he stuck them into his hip pouch as he doused the fire with a flick of his wrist and power. Jumping lightly up on a tree root near him, he ran and leapt along its length until he reached the trunk and scaled it with a relative ease, reaching the balcony after only a few moments.

Inside the tree cave, the scents of the cooked meal were overwhelming, drowning out all others. The door to the girl's…_thing_ was open and that's what quickly drew his attention. He could the men's slightly raised voices inside and, if his assumption was correct, they were intended…worried about something. Cautiously entering the _thing_, Harry's easily followed the voices to the source, in Fleur's sleeping room. One of the men was standing off to the side, his posture making his concern obvious to even Harry. The other man, the one who always seemed to glare at him, was hunched over Fleur's body, which was lying upon her bed.

Coming forward without invitation, Harry ignored the startled red man who yelped slightly when he finally noticed Harry's presence. The other man by Fleur turned to look curiously at the first, only to glare heatedly at Harry, who ignored with ease as he focused his attention upon the girl. As he was reaching his hand towards the girl's chest, the man caught his wrist and pulled it away, his glare intensifying.

Finally, Harry returned the man's glare as he yanked his arm free of the grasp. As the man began speaking, he focused his attention upon his lips, mesmerizing the sounds and structure as the man spoke, trying to translate it as best he could from his fragmented memory. For some reason, it was…harder to do so than it was with Fleur. But there were a few that he did recognize. Well, it was more the meaning than the actual words.

He _wasn't_ _needed_ here? He should _go away_?

Harry's eyes narrowed as the meaning began to sink in. He could see that his Fleur was sick. But this man didn't want him here? He didn't want his help to cure his Fleur? Who did he think he was to keep him from his Fleur? A slight growl was the man's only warning to move aside as Harry turned his attention back to the yellow-haired girl on the bed.

As he was reaching forward to feel the girl's chest again, the man once again caught his wrist, in a grip that was much tighter than the previous. Dangerous leaf-green eyes shot to the man as Harry's patience finally snapped and he lashed out with all his strength. Rather than break free, Harry turned his body slightly away from the man before jabbing the elbow of his captured arm backwards into the man's gut just below his ribcage, leaning into the blow as he did so for added power. The unexpected attack caught the man by surprise, forcing the wind from his lungs as he was knocked backwards and crashed to the ground. As the man tried to climb to his feet and suck air back inside his lungs, Harry spun and forcefully pushed the man back to the ground. Sending a wave of his power into the wood under his feet, he caused branches to suddenly spring to life and bind the man's arms and legs to the ground, trapping him.

Seeing the man trying to use his little stick to channel his power through, Harry quickly snatched it from his hand as he glared contemptuously down at him. The man was growling and loudly demanding his freedom, looking over towards the other one for assistance. When Harry's gaze shifted over to the second man, the second one merely held his hands up, showing them to be empty, as he stepped back a few times. Accepting his surrender, Harry turned his attention back to Fleur while stuffing the little stick into his hip pouch, blatantly ignoring the downed man's cries of anger at the second one.

Reaching for her chest for the third time, Harry's hands glowed a warm red as he used his power to discern what was wrong with the girl. After only a moment, he nodded to himself, knowing what was wrong. It would seem that he hadn't healed the girl as well as he'd originally thought he had after that Megalosaurus' attack yesterday. Megalosaurus were unlike most of the predators in the jungle because they had poisonous venom in their drool. It was how they hunted; deafen the prey with their sonic shrieks and, if the prey was still able to fight them off, poison them. The problem was that not all Megalosaur had the venom, and because the venom was usually slow to take effect, it was even harder to spot.

Reaching to his waist, Harry withdrew one of his daggers and opened a cut upon Fleur's wrist. Ignoring the heightened yelling of the trapped man, the red glow of Harry's hands returned as he gently grasped the girl's wrist and let the blood seep out and through his fingers. He concentrated upon the blood, using his power to seek out the telltale yellow venom among the red blood cells. As his power slowly began to fill Fleur's body, searching every vein and cell for the poison, the Veela's body began to adopt a similar faint red glow to mirror the light that surrounded Harry's hands.

Pulling the venom out of its hiding places within her body, he drew it out down the vein of her arm to the cut in her wrist. With one hand maintaining his grip on her wrist, he gently pulled the other away as the venom began oozing out. He faintly heard a small gasp of surprise from the free man as he stepped cautiously up behind Harry to watch what the kid was doing. The venom began to become steadily visible, dripping out into the air before floating over to and collecting into the palm of Harry's withdrawn hand.

The entire process of sucking all the venom out took at least ten minutes, but the amount of venom was surprisingly small, considering the normal quantities that the Megalosaur use on their larger prey. Ten minutes for barely a handful's worth of the poison was floating almost benevolently above Harry's palm. It wasn't until the slow, steady dripping of the yellow fluid out of her wrist stopped that he finally deemed it safe to close and heal the wound.

"Bloody hell," the man behind him whispered in an almost-awed voice.

Maintaining his concentration on the floating poison in his palm, Harry turned to the man with a raised eyebrow. He found himself moderately surprised that he _honestly_ recognized the words spoken and the meanings behind them; bad words too, if he remembered properly. Slight movement below him caught Harry's attention and he stared down at the trapped man. The man thankfully wasn't yelling anymore, but there did seem to be some kind of strange expression on his face that Harry didn't recognize as he stared at the floating mass of poison.

Snorting in dismissal of the man, Harry marched past him on his way outside to properly dispose of the venom. He paused only long enough to contemptuously drop the man's little stick next to him before leaving.

* * *

(**Author's Note**) Big thank you to **SulliMike23 **and** FictionReader98** for helping me brainstorm on this chapter and the ideas within!

I know this chapter is rather slow, especially given the long time between updates. FictionReader98 even mentioned that I just seem to stagnating with the storyline, something that I quite agree on. Yet there is a silver lining this slow chapter. You see, originally, I wanted to make this chapter a bit longer and push the plot along with the start of the journey downriver for the egg recovery, but obviously something different happened. This whole 'poisoning' was an idea that came completely out of left field and while it may have seemed to slow the storyline down even more, but I liked it. Plus, it's actually very fortunate of me to have come up with this idea. It'll help me _greatly_ accelerate the overall plotline, starting with the next chapter, I _promise_ you!

Before any of you ask, I added in that dream scene at the beginning for my own amusement. I wanted to try my hand at writing an 'almost lemon' scene, since I've never actually done one before. Please tell me what you think of it. Oh, and before you start asking for more of them, I will tell you all right here and now that I will _**NEVER**_ write a full blown lemon scene/story. I don't wish to degrade myself by having to resort to such tactics in order to write an 'acceptable' story. Sorry, all you perverts.


	15. The Forbidden Fruit of Knowledge

**Harry Potter and the World Beneath  
**By: Tellemicus Sundance  
_Chapter 15—The Forbidden Fruit of Knowledge_

**27 November 1994  
Sunday, morning**

Harry sat upon the railing to Fleur's tree cave, listening to the voices of the two men. He knew that they were working on stabilizing the young woman's condition now that the poison was out of her system. He wasn't sure how long it would take for her to properly recover but unless the men knew ways to accelerate her healing, it would be likely that she'd be sick for several weeks. Harry knew this from personal experience, for as incredible as his healing power was, even he couldn't shrug off that kind of poisoning very quickly.

And that was the dilemma he was now seriously considering. He wanted these three to leave now, but he knew that Fleur was no longer in any condition to travel very far or quickly. The longer they remained here, the greater the danger grew, and the shorter Allie's tolerance of them became. He knew that the only reason she hadn't acted against them yet was simply because she was more concerned with feeding and nurturing her hatchlings. Unless Allie was able to accept a newcomer in her den as at least a nonthreatening entity, the danger of her climbing the tree to attack and/or kill them was considerable.

And while Harry didn't like their presences any more than she, his long-suppressed need for human company was slowly but steadily rising to the surface again, primarily due to Fleur. Sighing as he looked towards the river, Harry knew what needed to be done in order to speed up their departure.

Dropping off the balcony and gently sliding down the bark, he landed lightly in front of Allie who was lying upon the ground watching her hatchlings get into another free-for-all brawl. Barking softly with various chirps and clicks of his tongue, he gestured towards the river. These actions roughly translated into: _I'm going hunting downriver, be back in a while. Please be good_.

Allie snorted almost derisively at that before nuzzling her snout up against his chest with a quiet purr. Harry smiled at her unspoken farewell as he gently scratched the underside of her jawbone. Pulling back, he leapt up to the large root and sprinted for the river. Pulling out his spear, he dove headlong into the warm water and allowed the current to pull him downstream.

It would take some time to find that screaming egg, but he would do it to protect his jungle.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

Fleur was still in bed, sleeping. It seemed that whatever Harry had done to her had caused her to fall asleep. Bill had been hovering over her since the boy departed, constantly checking her vitals. According to him, her body was almost already completely recovered. What damage that remained from that yellow substance that Harry had extracted from her was quickly being repaired and likely to be gone within two hours.

To pass the time, Charlie had mounted his broom and drifted lazily through the air. He kept himself hovering in the air out of easy biting range of the mother Allosaurus, watching her and the hatchlings with considerable interest. At the moment, the mother was lazing off to the side of the clearing between the tree roots, though he knew she was keeping him under constant observation as well. The hatchlings were scampering about, exploring their little sanctuary much more thoroughly.

One of the hatchlings just so happened to pass through his hovering shadow and looked up at him in curiosity. Charlie couldn't help but smile he watched the little dinosaur stand up as high as its short body could allow it and start making barked chirps at him. Attracted by the noise, the other hatchlings quickly joined the first, rushing over to it, barking at him while occasionally jumping upwards and snapping their little maws at him. Chuckling again, Charlie glanced over at the mother Allosaurus. Seeing her watching his movements with a close and suspicious gaze, he just laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. For some reason, that Allosaurus' stare reminded him of his own mother's whenever she caught her children misbehaving.

Floating over to the side, he set down atop one of the higher roots, still well out of reach of the hatchlings. Sitting down on the root, he dug in pants and pulled out a small strip of jerky he'd saved from breakfast. Taking one last bite to enjoy the flavor, he tossed the rest of it down to the baby dinosaurs. Like a pack of piranha, they instantly swarmed over the yummy smelling treat, snatching at it and tearing the tough meat to pieces in their strong little jaws. Within moments, the meat was gone and the babies gazing hungrily up at him with pleading eyes and cute chirping barks.

"Sorry, munchkins', that was my last piece," he called down to them. He started chuckling softly when he saw that they seemed to understand his words, if the unhappy barks at him were any indication.

Humming to himself as an idea came to him, Charlie pulled his wand out and began gently waving it in the air. Erupting from the end of his wand were five brilliantly-colored bubbles of magic. Charlie used his wand to control them like a puppeteer controls a puppet. A blue one drifted down in front of one of the hatchlings who curiously moved forward to sniff and inspect the strange thing before it. The little dinosaur's tongue snaked out to taste it, accidentally popping it. It burst like a bubble and sent little blue sparkles fluttering off through the air, fading as they fell. The other hatchlings, having seen this strange phenomenon, quickly decided that they liked this new game, leapt upwards for the rest of the floating bubbles, their little jaws snapping futilely as they tried to bite down on them.

"Nuh-uh, you have to be faster than that. I'm not going to just let you catch them that easily," Charlie called down to them playfully as a green bubble that actually looked like a bubble of some sort of radioactive goo danced around one particularly fierce hatchling's nose. The hatchling barked loudly as it lunged forward for the bubble but still missed the evasive green goop. The bubble bounced lightly off its snout and down its smooth back scales. In a burst of speed, the hatchling's tail snapped up and hit the bubble, popping it and splattering the little dinosaur with green sparkles. Standing erect as the last of the sparkles faded, the little dinosaur let a series of proud chirps at its accomplishment.

Charlie just laughed lightly as he continued to play with the little lizards. His attention was so focused on their little game that he didn't notice something of relatively high importance until a shadow fell over him and a potent stink of rotten meat and bad breath blew down his neck. Looking up, Charlie actually froze in surprise and fright when he found the mother Allosaurus standing over him, looking down at him with obvious intelligence in those eyes. If he hadn't been so unnerved, Charlie might've marveled at how she was able to sneak up on him so easily.

Leaning forward, the mother's nostrils flared softly as she closely inspected him, analyzing his strange smell and getting a very close look at his body and magic stick. Unknown to Charlie, Allie was easily able to smell the various scents of other creatures on him. The smells were so weak that they seemed to cover him like a faint fragrance or a slight dusting of perfume. He didn't smell too much of salty sweat like her partner did on occasion when he took the skins of the other animals off, but his full scent was something quite potent and irritating to her nose. It didn't come from her jungle home and that made it difficult for her to not to fear it out of instinct.

Then there was the fact that he could do many strange things with that little stick he was carrying. Drifting over to it, she eyed it closely, trying to determine just how much of a threat it would be to her babies. It certainly _looked_ harmless, but appearances were _always_ deceiving. Smelling it, she picked up the strong smell of wood oils, those creature scents, and a slight touch of sweat that had been soaked into it. How could something like that possibly be able to do such impossible things?

"Heh," Charlie grunted, torn between amused at her inspections and scared witless. "You must be a new mother; you're way too overprotective of those guys."

Allie of course didn't understand him, but she had grown rather skilled at reading a human's body language. At the moment, he was scared but trying not to let it affect him or her judgment of him. Good, he knew who the boss here was!

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

Unnoticed by any of them, another redhead arrived on the scene. Bill carefully glanced around the little clearing. The babies were still busy playing the remaining bubbles and the mother dinosaur seemed to be standing over Charlie with the obvious intent of intimidating him. If Charlie wasn't such a great handler of Magical Beasts and dragons, Bill might've been much more worried for his brother than he was.

Crouching low, he moved as quickly and quietly into the dark and cool depths of the tree. He had to resist the urge to illuminate his wand to see where he was going. No point in drawing any unnecessary to himself after all. But it was because of this that he saw a faint blue and green glow in the air and filling the air with almost palpable raw magic. Rounding the final corner, he stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the beautiful sight before him. Thousands of blue and green gems embedded in the tree cavern's walls, glowing and sparkling softly in the darkness of the cave.

"'_Cristaux ardents_,' indeed," Bill muttered to himself in wonder.

Walking over to the nearest set of gems, he took out his wand and brought it up to examine the strange jewel. Just as he was about to begin the incantation of a basic diagnosis spell, the sparkling gem suddenly flared to a blinding blue light as the wand's tip neared it. Bill reflexively backed away, his wand at the read. Curiously, the unexpected reaction died away as he retreated.

"Wait a minute…" Moving forward cautiously, Bill lifted his wand towards the gem again. Just like previously, the gem began to grow increasingly brighter the closer the magical instrument approached it. "No bloody way," Bill uttered as he realized just what he was staring at. "Sunstones?!" Spinning around and staring at the vast collection around him, he gawked in disbelief, "_All_ of them?!"

The gems went by many names in the magical world, but the most common for them was 'sunstones'. Sunstones were _incredibly_ rare magical items. They were so rare that there were less than a dozen or so even registered in the various magical governments or under private ownerships. Sunstones were also as incredibly powerful as they were rare. There were many ancient myths and legends surrounding them and all of them claimed that one sunstone had the power of over a thousand wands. Whether that was true or not was irrelevant, but if he were to bring just one of these home and sell it…

A slightly greedy gleam filled his eyes at the thought of the wealth he could gain. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Bill waved his wand, his magic yanking several of the closest gems out of the wood and floating them towards him. Grabbing them out of the air, he suddenly felt himself awash with immeasurable power. It was so empowering and intoxicating that he almost didn't have the strength of will to shove the small fist-sized gems into his pockets. Waving his wand again, he cast a small disillusionment charm over his pockets to hide the bright glow that the sunstones were giving off through the fabric.

So distracted was he as he made a hasty retreat back out of the sunstone cavern, Bill didn't notice the strange discoloration that was sweeping through the wood from the spots where the gems had been forcefully yanked from their resting places.

Harry Potter – **The World Beneath** – Harry Potter

It was a scene that many would've called majestic, beautiful, and peaceful. A curtain of sparkling white water showering off the edge of a nearby cliff and dropping down into a narrow but deep canyon. Trees, vines, and shrubbery lined the sides of the river below and the cliff high above. The rocks of the canyon wall were blood red sandstone and jutting out in waving patterns, reminiscent of the ancient river that had carved its way through the rock over the millennia.

A small flock of pterosaurs were gliding through the air above. And there was a skittish juvenile Iguanodon that had lost its herd was drinking from the river, keeping an ever-present watch at the water before it and the vegetation around it. It was fearful for a very good reason since it was in unknown territory and had been lost for almost a week. For all it knew, it had a pack of hunters stalking it right now, just waiting for the chance to jump it when it let its guard down.

As it was taking a badly-needed drink of water, a strange light and sound attracted its attention. Lifting its head, the Iguanodon watched as the strange orb of light in the water ahead of it began to rise to the surface. As it did, the strange musical sounds that it could faintly hear grew ever louder. What was that? What was going on in the river? Whatever it was, it was unnatural. It didn't know what it was and that made it even more frightening.

Then, with an eruption of water and a horrendous shrieking sound that replaced the musical voices, a small, dark body appeared with a loud cry. If the juvenile dinosaur had waited just a moment longer before turning and fleeing the scene in terror, it would've seen the strange creature holding a strange golden object in its paws.

Still suspended slightly in the air from his frantic swim to the surface, Harry couldn't help taking a deep breath of the sweet jungle air. Quickly adjusting his grip on the screaming abomination tucked under his arm, Harry's free hand shot to his mouth and grabbed the dagger he'd held between his teeth as he glared down into the water below him. It was only his super-human reflexes, gained from years of survival in this very jungle, that allowed him to yank his dangling feet up to his chest as a maw of large, crushing fangs shot up after him.

Thanks to his positioning and the large Deinosuchus crocodile's angle, Harry was able to reach out and push against the snout. This act allowed him to pushing himself up and over the large crocodile's maw, his feet coming descending as gravity pulled him back down. Sliding down the croc's wet hide as it sprung out of the water at high-speeds, Harry let out a loud laugh as he pushed off the croc's back and leapt as high and far away as he could.

Approaching the canyon wall, he channeled his power into his dagger and jabbed it into the soft sandstone. This left him hanging a good four meters above the river's surface, trying to shut the accursed screaming atrocity under his arm before it alerted the entire jungle of his location. All the while the Deinosuchus made repeated attempts to jump out of the water and snatch him up in its jaws before splashing back down into the water.

Finally managing to close the damn egg and replacing the simple twist lock on the top, he hefted it back and hurled it up onto the cliff three meters above him. Seeing it land safely, he grabbed another dagger and began pulling himself up after the egg, ignoring the angry croc below as it ceased its futile attempts. The ancient crocodile resorted to floating on the surface and watching its midday snack swiftly climb the steep cliff wall, hoping that Harry would slip and fall back down into the water. No such luck though.

Reaching the top of the cliff, Harry easily hauled himself safely up it and sheathed his daggers. Letting out a heavy sigh of relief, he looked back down at the creature that had almost gotten the drop on him. He'd known that it would be dangerous searching the river for the egg and had kept close attention out for marine predators. But despite all his efforts, that croc had still snuck up on him and nearly eaten him. One thing was for certain, he was never going to do anything like that ever again!

But, in a rare flash of childish impudence, Harry arrogantly stuck his tongue out at the reptile below him. '_As if you could've managed to stomach me! I'd have torn you apart from the inside-out!_' His self-confidence suitably rejuvenated from his near-death, Harry collected the discarded egg and made his way back to where he'd stashed his cloak, satchel, and weapons. Now all that was left was to escort his Fleur back upside and make sure that no one could ever follow him back down here again.

* * *

(**Author's Note**) I'm so sorry it's taken me this long to update this story! Though, to be honest, this isn't even where I wanted to end this chapter. But I felt that you guys had waited way too long and this particular chapter has been an elephant on my back for a while now. Let's hope that my next one will be out sooner and much longer in length!


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